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J   WAS   HANDED   A   LETTER   IN   A  STRANGE   HANDWRITING. 

IP-  55. 


MY    FLIRTATIONS 


BY 

MARGARET   WYNMAN 


WITH  IS  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  J.  BERNARD  PARTRIDGE 


PHILADELPHIA 
J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT    COMPANY 

1893 


PRINTED  BY  •>•  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY,  PHILADELPHIA,  U.  8.  A. 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


I  WAS  HANDED  A  LETTER  IN  A  STRANGE  HAND- 
WRITING   Frontispiece 

FACE 

HE  IS  A  ROYAL  ACADEMICIAN 9 

'THERE  IS  A  LITTLE  TOWN  IN  ITALY  WHERE  I  MUST 

TAKE  YOU  ONE  DAY,  MARGUERITE*  ...  19 

I  REMEMBER  THE  FIRST  TIME  HE  CAME  IN  WITH 

FATHER 25 

HAVING  A  PROLONGED  ALTERCATION  WITH  THE  AT- 
TENDANT   41 

VAL  REDMOND 59 

HIS  MEDICAL  SKILL  WAS  IN  CONSTANT  REQUEST  .  .  73 
MR.  CARSON  RIPPLED  A  FEW  CHORDS  OVER  THE  KEYS  87 
FATIGUED,  EXPRESSIONLESS  FEATURES  .  .  .  .  105 
MR.  MORRIS  WAS  A  PERSON  OF  IMPORTANCE  .  .  115 
«WE  DON'T  BEGIN  TO  HAVE  ANYTHING  LIKE  THIS  IN 

NEW  YORK' 133 

HE  WAS  HARDLY  A  TYPICAL  FRENCHMAN  .  .  -145 
HE  WAS  NOT  QUITE  UGLY  .  .  .  .  ,  '-173 


•** 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


MY   FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  first  one 
—  the  very 
first  one  ? 
Well,  I  almost 
think  it  was  a 
sallow,  under- 
sized Italian 
with  hand- 
some ox-eyes, 
who  used  to 
give  us  violin 
lessons  ;  or 
else  it  was  a 

cousin,  a  boy  with  sandy  hair,  who  stammered, 
and  who  was  reading  for  the  army ;  but,  no,  I 
rather  think  it  was  the  anxious  young  doctor, 
who  came  when  I  had  the  measles — anyhow, 

9 


HE   IS  A   ROYAL  ACADEMICIAN. 


io  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

he,  the  primeval  one,  is  lost  in  the  mists  of 
antiquity.  .  .  . 

A  great  many  people  come  to  our  house, 
and  they  have  always  done  so  as  long  as  I  can 
recollect.  Father  is  a  Royal  Academician,  and 
paints  shocking  bad  portraits,  but  the  British 
public  is  quite  unaware  of  the  fact.  The 
British  public  likes  to  be  painted  by  a  Royal 
Academician,  so  it  pays  large  prices  and  is 
hung  on  the  line  in  the  big  room  at  Burlington 
House.  They  all  come  ;  red-faced,  red-coated 
M.F.H.'s,  the  bejewelled  wives  of  Manchester 
millionaires,  young  beauties,  heads  of  colleges, 
the  celebrities  of  the  day — they  all  sit,  with  the 
same  fixed  eyes  and  the  same  tight  smile,  on 
the  dais  in  our  gorgeous  studio. 

The  studio  is  an  imposing  room.  Father 
likes  me  to  sit  in  the  alcove  with  the  golden 
mosaics,  on  a  peach-coloured  divan,  with  tur- 
quoise-blue cushions ;  and  on  Show  Sunday 
Christina  is  seen  in  a  little  white  gown  in  the 
oaken  gallery,  playing  dreamy  voluntaries  on 
the  organ.  ...  It  looks  idyllic,  and  nobody 
knows  that  there  has  usually  been  a  family  row 
shortly  before  the  people  begin  crowding  in. 
Christina  is  tart  of  tongue,  and  is  not  to  be  put 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  n 

down  by  a  mere  parent.  But  I  was  speaking 
of  the  studio.  There  is  a  perfection  of  detail 
about  the  vast  apartment  which  is  impres- 
sive ;  indeed,  so  fascinating  a  workshop  has 
father  fashioned  for  himself,  that  I  have  seen 
a  dozen  people  inspecting  the  brocades  and 
spindle-legged  tables,  and  forgetting  to  look 
at  the  pictures  on  the  easels.  The  over- 
worked critics,  too,  about  the  beginning  of 
April,  are  apt  to  gush  inordinately  over  a 
Nankin  bowl  full  of  daffodils,  while  they  turn 
their  backs  on  a  portrait  that  has  taken  the 
best  part  of  a  year  to  paint.  We  live  in  a 
nest  of  artists.  Next  door  they  paint  Oriental 
subjects,  and  hire  a  dusky  Arab — more  or  less 
genuine — who  wears  a  turban,  and  opens  the 
front  door  at  tea-parties.  A  dozen  yards 
farther  up  the  street  they  supply  the  thor- 
oughly English  idyl — young  ladies  in  white 
muslin  sitting  on  September  lawns ;  young 
gentlemen  in  riding-breeches,  who  are  either 
accepted  or  rejected.  Just  opposite  they  do 
sea-pictures — the  old  woman  shading  her  eyes 
with  her  hand ;  the  young  woman  in  despair, 
with  the  careless  infant  at  her  knee.  And  all 
the  houses  are  of  red  brick,  with  gables  and 


12  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

white-wood  balconies,  and  queer  little  windows 
in  unexpected  places.  Our  front  doors  are 
painted  a  pale  sea-green,  with  brass  knockers 
and  bell-handles.  On  Show  Sunday  the  British 
public  wanders  in  and  out,  sublimely  ignorant 
of  whether  it  is  in  the  house  of  Smith,  R.A., 
or  Robinson,  A.R.A.  And  yet  ours  is  the 
only  studio  with  an  Organ. 

During  the  season  we  give  Sunday  dinner- 
parties, followed  by  an  open  evening,  and  we 
also  entertain  the  '  sitters  '  at  lunch.  Some  of 
the  sitters  have  been  known  to  want  to  hear 
me  play  the  violin.  I  play  execrably,  but  they 
are  too  polite  to  say  so.  All  this  rather  bores 
Christina,  whose  latest  hobby — Socialism — 
takes  up  most  of  her  time. 

Christina  can  be,  on  occasion,  almost  brutally 
cynical ;  but  then  she  is  clever,  and  when  I  want 
to  get  out  of  a  scrape  I  go  to  her.  Mother 
would  not  be  of  the  faintest  use  under  such 
circumstances.  She  would  get  pink  and 
flurried,  and  tell  me  'that  she  married  my 
father  at  seventeen,  and  settled  down  after 
that,'  and  would  further  inform  me  that  she  had 
'  no  patience  with  such  philandering.'  Poor 
mother,  I  really  pity  her  limited  experience. 


My  FLOTATIONS  13 

.  .  It  must  be  like  eternally  dining  off  roast 
mutton  to  marry  at  seventeen,  and  settle  down 
dully  and  respectably  for  the  rest  of  your 
natural  life ! 

I  was  christened  Margaret,  but  most  people 
call  me  Peggy.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  all  my 
friends  call  me  by  different  names.  Some  call 
me  Miss  Wynman,  others  Margaret ;  while 
'  Miss  Peggy  '  and  '  Peggy '  do  duty  more  often. 
One  young  man — but  he  was  an  American — 
always  addressed  me  as  '  Peggy  Wynman  ' — a 
form  of  appellation,  by-the-bye,  which  usually 
prefaced  a  lecture.  Gilbert  Mandell  called  me 
Marguerite. 

Gilbert  Mandell  is  one  of  the  'dear  de- 
parted.' Not  that  he  is  dead.  Oh  no !  I  call 
them  the  '  dear  departed  '  when  it  is  all  over,  and 
they  have  betaken  themselves  to  India,  or  Japan, 
or  the  East  End  to  work  among  the  People. 

It  is  not  flattering  to  one's  vanity,  but  it 
must  be  frankly  owned  that,  as  a  rule,  my 
admirers  '  depart '  with  phenomenal  celerity. 
Their  devotion  generally  lasts  from  six  weeks 
to  three  months.  Why  this  thing  should  be 
I  cannot  tell.  Some  people  say  it  is  because  I 
don't  let  them  talk  about  themselves. 

i 


14  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

I  really  think  Christina  objected  less  to 
Gilbert  Mandell  than  to  any  of  those  who  have 
come  after  him.  If  he  savoured  slightly  of  the 
prig,  she  maintained,  he  was  neither  a  knave 
nor  a  fool.  Christina  doesn't  care  for  young 
men. 

My  principal  objection  to  him  was  that  he 
was  associated  in  my  imagination  with  drains. 
Of  course  one  cannot  help  the  particular  way 
in  which  one's  parent  has  made  a  fortune,  but, 
considering  his  son's  taste  for  smart  society 
and  intellectual  pursuits,  it  was  thoughtless  of 
Mandell  pere  to  poke  his  '  Deodorising  Pow- 
der' in  one's  eye  at  every  turn.  Poor  young 
man,  how  he  must  have  suffered !  '  Mandell's 
superior  pink  carbolic  disinfectant  powder' 
screamed  at  you,  so  to  speak,  at  every  street 
corner.  The  legend  of  its  multifarious  virtues 
was  writ  large  on  every  omnibus.  It  flared,  in 
connection  with  a  plump  lady  in  full  ball  cos- 
tume, from  every  hoarding. 

Of  course  there  were  lots  of  people,  even 
when  he  was  at  Cambridge,  who  knew  nothing 
of  the  Deodoriser.  But  it  always  hung,  like  a 
modern  sword  of  Damocles,  over  poor  Gilbert's 
head.  It  made  him  diffident  where  he  should 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  15 

have  been  at  ease ;  it  made  him  malicious 
when  it  would  have  been  to  his  social  advan- 
tage to  appear  kindly.  But  even  at  Cambridge 
he  had  given  unmistakable  signs  of  being  a 
Superior  Person.  He  could  repeat,  to  a  nicety, 
the  shibboleth  of  Superior  People.  He  knew 
when  to  let  fall  a  damaging  phrase  about  the 
poetical  fame  of  Mr.  Lewis  Morris,  and  when 
to  insinuate  a  paradox  about  the  great  and 
only  Stendhal.  In  art,  he  generally  spoke  of 
Velasquez  and  Degas ;  in  music,  only  the 
tetralogies  at  Bayreuth  were  worth  discus- 
sion. 

Mr.  Mandell  was  a  pessimist.  That  was 
what  attracted  me  first,  for  at  seventeen  a 
girl  is  always  impressed  by  any  cynical  man 
of  the  world  who  will  notice  her.  And  Gilbert 
Mandell  noticed  me  a  good  deal.  He  said  I 
was  '  suggestive ' — whatever  that  meant — and 
that  my  mind  was  '  receptive.'  And  then  he 
began  to  lend  me  books  by  Mr.  Walter  Pater, 
which  I  remember  perplexed  me  very  much. 
He  also  sent  me  George  Meredith's  novels ; 
and  there  was  even  a  volume  of  Schopenhauer, 
I  remember,  which  I  used  to  pretend  I  had 

read. 

2 


1 6  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

In  appearance  he  was  a  middle-sized  man 
of  thirty-four,  with  rather  pink  cheeks,  and  a 
slightly  bald  forehead.  His  hands  were  fleshy 
and  white,  and  had  exquisitely  pared  and 
polished  nails.  A  manicure  usually  attended 
to  his  hands.  He  always  had  the  newest 
scandal ;  and  sometimes,  when  he  was  going  to 
say  something  specially  malicious,  he  hesitated 
a  little  in  his  speech,  not  from  any  false  shame, 
but  because  he  was  so  delighted  with  what  he 
was  going  to  say.  For  the  rest,  he  was  always 
beautifully  dressed,  and  generally  affected 
fashions  which  were  coming  in.  He  had  two 
secret  ambitions :  to  dine  with  a  duchess,  and 
to  write  an  article  in  the  Contemporary  Review. 

Looking  back  at  it  now,  it  strikes  me  that 
Gilbert  Mandell  had  quaint  notions  about 
amusing  a  young  girl.  He  used  to  take  us 
for  long  afternoons  at  the  South  Kensington 
Museum,  where  we  gazed  at  Persian  tiles,  and 
Japanese  ivories,  and  illuminated  missals  until 
my  eyes  ached,  and  Christina  roundly  declared 
she  wouldn't  stay  another  minute.  Then  Gil- 
bert would  look  at  us  from  under  his  drooping 
eyelids  with  a  surprised  little  stare.  He  was 
never  tired  of  art.  And  how  Christina  was 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  17 

bored !  She  came  from  a  stern  sense  of  duty, 
and  because,  as  she  frankly  said,  the  '  thing 
wouldn't  do.'  Poor  Christina,  she  was  destined 
to  see  many  such  as  Mr.  Gilbert  Mandell  come 
and  go.  Other  days  it  would  be  the  National 
Gallery — he  never  went  inside  modern  exhibi- 
tions of  pictures  in  London — where  I  learnt  a 
good  deal  about  Velasquez  and  Holbein  and 
Franz  Hals.  It  is  from  that  period  that  my 
suspicion  dates  that  father  does  not  know  how 
to  paint  pictures. 

He  came  to  our  house  a  good  deal.  Father 
laughed  at  his  clothes  and  his  manners,  but 
said  he  was  a  '  sharp  fellow ' ;  while  mother 
was  amused  with  his  little  stories  about  smart 
society,  into  which,  by  great  assiduity,  he  had 
managed  to  effect  a  sort  of  entrance.  In 
Mayfair  they  knew  nothing  of  the  Deodoriser. 
Mandell  senior  lived  in  a  mansion  in  Surrey, 
where  he  cultivated  orchids  and  pineapples, 
and  the  world  knew  nothing  of  him.  The  son, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  charming  rooms  in 
St.  James's,  where  he  gave  frequent  tea-parties, 
which  were  sparsely  attended  by  a  handful  of 
modish  women,  interlarded  with  thin,  youngish- 
old  men,  who  spent  their  lives  criticising  the 


1 8  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

critics,  and  whose  claim  to  immortality  lay  in  a 
memoir  of  Lamb  or  Coleridge.  Somehow  or 
other,  these  parties  were  not  hilarious.  The 
elements  did  not  mix,  and  Mr.  Mandell  was 
a  somewhat  flurried,  nervous  host.  The  day 
that  an  ambassadress  came  to  tea  his  distrac- 
tion was  almost  painful.  Gilbert  Mandell  was 
an  example  of  that  extremely  modern  mixture, 
a  man  of  fashion  and  a  critic ;  indeed,  his 
respect  for  smart  women  was  only  equalled  by 
his  adoration  for  the  log-rollers  of  the  Saturday 
Review. 

I  have  never  made  out  to  this  day  why  he 
noticed  me.  Christina  says  he  must  have  had 
a  depraved  taste  for  school-girls,  or  else  he 
thought  by  taking  the  raw  material  of  a  woman, 
so  to  speak,  he  might  fashion  a  companion 
to  his  taste.  He  tried  hard  to  cultivate  my 
mind.  He  was  always  writing  to  me.  That 
was  another  odd  thing  about  Gilbert  Mandell. 
An  ordinary  young  man  looks  upon  pens  and 
paper  with  deep-rooted  suspicion  and  distrust. 
I  have  had  more  than  one  flirtation  carried 
on  solely  by  telegram.  But  Mr.  Mandell 
was  always  writing  me  long  epistles,  very 
carefully  worded,  and  in  a  semi-literary  style. 


THERE    IS   A   LITTLE   TOWN    IN    ITALY   WHERE   I   MUST  TAKE  YOU 
ONE   DAY,    MARGUERITE. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  21 

I  remember  I  was  very  proud  of  those  letters. 
They  flattered  me  in  a  young  girl's  most  vul- 
nerable point ;  they  implied  that  my  opinion 
was  worth  having.  I  don't  know  whether  it 
was  that,  or  his  pronounced  pessimism,  which 
attracted  me  most.  He  was  also  fond  of  im- 
plying— as  he  pointed  out,  with  a  white  hand, 
some  masterpiece  of  the  Florentine  school,  or 
sat  murmuring  paradoxes  over  the  tea-table — 
that  there  were  places  and  things  which  we 
should  see,  in  the  future,  together. 

'  There  is  a  little  town  in  Italy — Orvieto,' 
he  said,  one  afternoon,  when  Christina  and  I 
had  been  listening  to  a  disquisition  on  the 
Renaissance,  '  where  I  must  take  you  one  day, 
Marguerite.  You  must  see  the  fa$ade  of  the 
cathedral.  Orvieto  is  an  education  in  art.' 

It  long  remained  vague.  But  one  day — it 
was  a  very  wet  day,  I  remember,  and  we  were 
coming  back  in  a  hansom  from  the  National 
Gallery — he  alluded  in  a  roundabout  sort  of 
way  to  an  organ  he  was  pleased  to  call  his 
heart.  Then  it  struck  me  all  at  once  that  it 
was  impossible.  It  was  not  the  Deodoriser 
that  I  minded.  I  think  it  was  the  pinkness  of 

his  nails  and  a  certain  complaisant  way  which 
6  2* 


22  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

he  had  of  regarding  me  which  irritated  me 
when  it  came  to  a  question  of  a  life-long 
interview. 

I  suppose  I  must  have  said  '  No,'  and 
possibly  with  some  fervour.  Smiling  vaguely, 
he  took  my  hand.  He  evidently  did  not 
believe  me. 

'  I  won't  hurry  you,  dear  child,'  he  said,  as 
he  left  me  on  my  own  doorstep.  '  You  will 
think  it  over — you  will  be  able  to  make  up 
your  mind  by-and-by.' 

But  I  never  made  up  my  mind  that  I  wanted 
to  marry  Mr.  Mandell. 

Not  long  after  he  came  to  say  that  he  was 
going  abroad.  At  first  he  wrote  pretty  often, 
and,  as  usual,  his  letters  were  semi-literary, 
though  to  be  sure  the  '  burning  question '  was 
discussed  from  various  points  of  view.  But, 
to  my  relief,  the  letters  got  more  and  more 
literary  as  time  went  on,  and  finally  they 
stopped  altogether. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  23 


CHAPTER   II 

PERHAPS  it  was  by  way  of  contrast  to  the 
Superior  Person  that  I  appreciated  Tony  Lam- 
bert so  much — for  a  time.  He  was  the  most 
na'ive  individual  I  have  ever  known  ;  indeed, 
his  naivete  quite  disarmed  me.  And,  in  a 
breezy,  boyish  way  he  was  diverting.  To  be 
sure,  he  did  not  expect  me  to  read  Schopen- 
hauer, of  whose  existence  I  imagine  he  was 
but  dimly  aware,  nor  did  he  ask  me  to 
spend  afternoons  at  the  National  Gallery. 
Kempton  Park  and  the  Gaiety  Theatre  were 
more  to  his  taste,  and  while  this  sportive  affair 
lasted  the  house  had  a  rollicking,  youthful 
atmosphere  which  was  the  result  of  something 
more  subtle  than  Tony's  ringing  laugh,  and 
Tony's  skirmishing  fox  terriers,  who  invariably 
accompanied  their  master  in  his  many  visits. 

We  neither  of  us  took  each  other  seriously, 
and  that  added  a  certain  charm  to  the  thing. 


24  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

Everybody  at  home  liked  Tony,  except,  I 
think,  Christina,  who  said  she  couldn't  under- 
stand his  slang,  and  that  he  made  a  draught 
in  the  drawing-room,  he  was  so  boisterous  and 
restless.  The  family  saw  a  good  deal  of  him 
in  those  days,  for  he  was  being  painted  in 
parade  dress,  and  he  used  to  stay  to  lunch  so 
as  to  be  able  to  pose  again  in  the  afternoon. 

I  remember  the  first  time  he  came  in  with 
father,  pink  with  mortification  at  being  seen 
in  his  uniform  in  the  daytime  out  of  barracks. 
Whence  comes,  I  wonder,  the  love  of  mufti  so 
deeply  implanted  in  the  breast  of  the  British 
officer  ?  Tony,  fortunately,  learnt  to  forget  his 
early  sense  of  discomfiture,  and  spent  many 
merry  half-hours  in  our  little  study  when  he 
had  done  sitting,  singing  soldiers'  songs  with 
a  fearful  and  wonderful  accompaniment  of  his 
own  invention,  while  the  dogs  chased  each 
other,  barking  joyously,  over  the  sofas  and 
chairs.  How  he  used  to  light  up  the  dim  little 
twilight  room  with  his  scarlet  bravery  and  his 
irrepressible  spirits ! 

Mr.  Anthony  Lambert  was  the  eldest  son 
of  Norfolk  People.  One  day  or  other  he  would 
come  into  possession  of  a  fine  old  house,  some 


I    REMEMBER  THE   FIRST  TIME   HE   CAME   IN   WITH   FATHER. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  27 

excellent  shooting,  and  three  thousand  a  year — 
an  income  by  no  means  large  enough  to  keep 
up  the  Towers.  Therefore  it  was  an  under- 
stood thing,  especially  by  Lady  Marion,  his 
mamma,  that  Tony,  when  he  married,  was  to 
marry  money.  In  the  meantime  Tony  was  to 
be  painted,  first  to  adorn  the  next  exhibition  at 
Burlington  House,  and  afterwards  the  collection 
of  family  portraits  at  the  Towers.  So  that  in 
this  way  the  boy,  in  spite  of  Lady  Marion's  pre- 
cautions, came  directly  under  the  influence  of  a 
most  undesirable  young  person,  to  wit,  myself. 
Tony  was  a  lieutenant  in  a  line  regiment, 
and  I  fear  his  high  spirits  made  him  have  occa- 
sional differences  of  opinion  with  his  colonel. 
In  appearance  he  was  distinctly  good  to  look  at. 
He  had  a  clean,  pink  skin,  twinkling  blue  eyes, 
and  hair  so  flaxen  that  it  was  almost  silver. 
His  shoulders  were  broad  and  square,  he  had 
a  delightful  laugh,  and  he  was  just  three-and- 
twenty.  And,  without  being  in  the  least  con- 
ceited, Tony  was  thoroughly  pleased  with  him- 
self, his  regiment,  and  his  belongings.  He  had, 
in  a  supreme  degree,  the  magnetism  which 
comes  of  perfect  health,  good  spirits,  and  com- 
plete self-satisfaction. 


28  jify  FLIRTATIONS 


What  an  infectious  thing  is  happiness,  and 
what  a  golden  age  is  three-and-twenty  !  With 
what  vigour  did  Tony  play  lawn-tennis,  how 
excited  he  got  over  races  and  cricket  matches, 
how  hot  he  became  when  he  danced,  what 
portentous  suppers  he  could  eat!  .  .  .  The 
very  sound  of  his  voice  in  the  hall  —  a  voice 
with  raised  inflections,  for  the  ends  of  Tony's 
sentences  always  finished  joyously  —  roused  one 
up  on  the  foggiest  and  dreariest  of  days. 

To  go  for  a  walk  in  the  park  or  along 
Piccadilly  with  Tony  Lambert  was  a  whole 
education  in  itself  in  the  ways  of  young  men  : 
his  joy  was  so  manifest  when  a  pretty  face,  a 
showy  figure,  or  even  a  well-cut  gown  ap- 
peared in  sight.  He  had  the  omnivorous 
glance  which  takes  in  every  detail,  and  which 
is  the  prerogative  of  men  who  spend  most  of 
their  leisure  in  sport.  Seldom  will  you  find 
a  writer,  a  lawyer,  or  a  scientist  with  the 
faculty  of  observation  as  highly  cultivated  as 
in  the  most  brainless  individual  used  to  the 
rod  and  the  gun. 

Tony,  by-the-bye,  was  one  of  the  young 
men  with  whom  I  corresponded  by  electric 
telegraph.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  29 

possess  a  scrap  of  his  handwriting.  Whether 
he  was  doubtful  of  his  prowess  in  grammar  and 
spelling,  or  whether  it  was  a  bit  of  worldly 
wisdom  beyond  his  years,  will  remain  for  ever 
a  mystery,  but  Christina  got  quite  tired  of  those 
agitated  pulls  of  the  bell  which  announced  the 
telegraph  boy,  while  at  this  period  orange- 
coloured  envelopes  were  served  up  to  me  at 
every  hour  of  the  day. 

There  was  nothing  he  didn't  offer  us,  from 
invitations  to  military  balls,  to  bags  of  American 
candy.  To  me  especially  he  offered  a  great 
many  photographs  of  himself,  in  various  de- 
grees of  military  splendour,  which  gave  my 
room,  for  the  time  being,  quite  a  spirited  and 
martial  air.  Of  course  this  didn't  last  long,  for 
my  photograph  frames  and  space  to  put  them 
are  limited,  whereas  my  friends  are  many,  and 
in  the  course  of  years  one  frame  contains  many 
'counterfeit  presentments.'  Christina  says  that, 
if  I  have  a  heart,  it  must  be  like  my  photo- 
graph frames.  .  .  . 

From  what  I  could  gather,  Mr.  Lambert 
was  never  in  love  with  fewer  than  three 
ladies  at  a  time.  He  was  like  one  of  the 
modern  monster  shopkeepers,  a  sort  of  universal 


3Q  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

admirer  of  the  fairer  sex.  And  yet  one  never 
blamed  him  for  it,  perhaps  because  he  was  so 
perfectly  candid  in  his  enthusiasms.  As  far  as 
I  could  make  out,  the  fair  with  whom  I  shared 
his  affections  at  this  time  were  his  Major's  wife 
— a  person  with  fluffy  hair,  an  exaggerated 
figure,  and  a  well-worn  smile — and  an  individual 
whose  acquaintance,  it  appeared,  he  had  not  yet 
succeeded  in  making,  but  who  occupied  a  dis- 
tinguished position  in  the  second  row  of  the 
Gaiety  chorus.  It  was  always  amusing  to 
get  Tony  on  to  the  subject  of  his  loves.  The 
'  little  friends  '  that  he  '  played  with '  seemed 
to  have  been  of  all  ages  and  sizes,  and  his 
amorous  difficulties  appeared  to  have  been 
numerous.  Once  already  had  his  family  offered 
a  substantial  sum  to  a  young  lady  in  the  Cam- 
berwell  Road  as  a  substitute  for  Tony's  hand  ; 
but  that,  as  he  acknowledged  with  a  pink  and 
rueful  countenance,  had  been  in  'his  gay  and 
giddy  youth.'  Having  now  arrived  at  the  dis- 
creet age  of  three-and-twenty,  he  was  resolved 
to  mend  his  ways.  And  to  begin  well,  he  pro- 
ceeded, in  his  airy  and  irresponsible  way,  to 
imagine  that  he  cared  about  me. 


FLIRTATIONS  31 

I  wonder  what  Lady  Marion  would  have 
said  of  the  three  months  that  followed  ? 

Tony  took  his  '  long  leave'  on  January  ist, 
and  it  was  at  this  time,  being  a  good  deal  in 
London,  that  he  sat  for  his  portrait.  For  the 
next  two  months  Christina  and  I  were  never 
sure  when  he  would  not  burst  into  our  den 
with  his  joyous  laugh  and  a  couple  of  excited 
dogs  wagging  delighted  tails,  with  some  project 
of  rushing  us  off  somewhere  or  other  in  search 
of  amusement.  What  would  Lady  Marion 
have  said  to  all  this,  I  wonder ;  and  of  those 
many  accidental  meetings  in  Bond  Street,  when 
we  used  to  drop  in  at  the  minor  exhibitions, 
and  come  out  sublimely  unconscious  of  whether 
we  had  been  looking  at  Van  Beers  or  Gustave 
Dore  ?  Or  of  the  pompous  dances  in  Queen's 
Gate  to  which  mother  allowed  me  to  take  the 
boy,  and  where  he  met,  I  believe  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  the  youth  and  loveliness  of 
South  Kensington  ?  Tony  had  met  '  county ' 
girls  and  '  garrison '  girls  and  Gaiety  girls,  but 
I  don't  think  he  had  ever  before  danced  with 
a  London  middle-class  damsel.  Lady  Marion, 
I  verily  believe,  would  have  preferred  the  young 
person  in  the  Camberwell  Road. 


32  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

But  our  last  dance  was  not  to  be  in  Queen's 
Gate.  The  regiment  was  ordered  to  the  Cur- 
ragh,  and  Tony  was  in  despair.  Nothing 
would  do  but  we  must  come  to  the  regiment's 
farewell  ball  at  Mulchester,  and  it  was  there,  in 
the  long,  low  rooms  of  the  Officers'  Mess,  against 
a  background  of  flags  and  military  trophies, 
that  I  saw  Tony's  blonde  head  for  the  last 
time.  .  .  .  The  pretty  scene  comes  back  to  me 
now — the  glare  of  scarlet  coats  among  the  flesh- 
tones  of  the  women ;  the  delicate-tinted  tulle 
dresses  against  a  bank  of  pink  azaleas  and 
palms ;  the  blue  uniforms  of  the  Gunners  and 
the  green  of  the  Rifles  striking  a  sombre  note 
in  the  gay  chord  of  colour  ;  the  intimate  sad- 
ness of  those  valse  refrains  which  the  band  of 
the  regiment  played ;  and  over  all  that  acute 
atmosphere  of  mixed  pain  and  pleasure  which 
is  associated — when  one  is  eighteen — with  the 
words  '  for  the  last  time.' 

It  was  my  first  soldiers'  ball.  How  well  I 
remember  the  whole  atmosphere  of  that  night : 
the  Colonel,  smiling,  urbane,  and  slightly  in- 
different ;  the  Colonel's  wife,  a  lady  with  pro- 
truding teeth  and  neatly-parted  hair,  who  was 
said  to  be  wealthy  ;  the  eager  young  faces  of 


My  FLIRTATIONS  2 3 

the  junior  subalterns  as  they  surrounded  some 
showy  beauty ;  the  heavy-jawed  Captain  to 
whom  I  was  introduced  on  my  entry,  and  who 
deserted  me  at  once  for  a  buxom  lady  with 
dubious  hair  and  many  diamonds.  .  .  .  Oh, 
those  military  ladies !  How  dashing,  how  much 
too  dashing,  they  were ;  what  drawn-in  waists, 
what  liberal  smiles,  what  suspiciously  white 
shoulders !  How  pert  and  off-hand  they  seemed 
in  public,  and  how  confiding  they  looked  in 
obscure  corners  down  back  passages,  where 
Tony's  straw-coloured  hair  and  scarlet  coat 
were  to  be  seen  often  during  that  night. 
Heaven  has  not  been  pleased  to  inflict  on  me 
a  suspicious  disposition,  or  I  fear  I  should  have 
passed  but  an  indifferently  amusing  evening. 
For  Mr.  Anthony  Lambert,  with  the  gay  in- 
souciance of  youth,  had  thoughtlessly  invited 
some  half-dozen  of  his  '  loves,'  and  his  Major's 
wife,  it  appeared,  was  inordinately  jealous. 

Some  fifteen  years  ago  this  lady  had  been 
described  in  a  local  newspaper  as  a  '  magnificent 
blonde,'  and  she  had  been  living  up  to  the 
epithet  ever  since.  She  had  all  the  airs  of  a 
beauty,  and  she  seemed  to  regard  Mr.  Lambert 
as  her  especial  property.  At  ten  o'clock  I 


34  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

heard  her  reproaching  him  for  only  wanting 
three  dances  ;  at  one  o'clock  she  deliberately 
fetched  him  out  of  a  balcony  where  he  was 
saying  good-bye  to  a  pretty  little  girl  with  red 
hair.  ...  I  don't  wonder  that  Tony  looked 
harassed  ;  the  smile  of  his  Major's  wife  was 
terrifying.  Poor  boy !  I,  at  least,  had  never 
worried  or  reproached  him,  and  I  think  he  was 
proportionately  grateful  at  the  last.  It  was  a 
black  night  and  pouring  rain,  I  remember,  when 
we  finally  drove  away,  but  I  could  see  that 
Tony's  blue  eyes  looked  unspeakable  things  as 
we  whispered  a  final  hurried  good-bye  at  the 
carriage  door. 

One  morning,  a  few  months  later,  we  read 
in  the  paper  that  a  marriage  had  been  arranged, 
and  would  take  place  immediately,  between 
Mr.  Anthony  Lambert  of  the  Blankshire  Regi- 
ment, eldest  son  of  Mr.  and  Lady  Marion 
Lambert  of  the  Towers,  Sleepington,  Norfolk, 
and  Katherine,  eldest  daughter  of  Patrick 
O'Flaherty,  Esq.,  of  Dublin.  He  had  been 
taken  seriously  by  a  garrison  beauty  a  dozen 
years  older  than  himself.  Although  they  have 
already  three  children,  I  hear  that  Lady  Marion 
refuses  to  see  her  enterprising  Irish  daughter- 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  35 

in-law,  and  now  the  regiment  is  in  India.  Poor 
Tony!  He  was  born,  it  would  appear,  to  be 
the  sport  of  the  less  amiable  members  of  our 
sex.  His  Major's  wife  is,  of  course,  with  the 
regiment,  and  people  say  that  Mrs.  Anthony 
Lambert  is  primitively  jealous.  A  ridiculous 
song  that  he  used  to  strum  always  occurs  to  me 
when  I  think  of  him,  for  the  refrain 

Woman,  lovely  woman  ! 

epitomises  the  tragi-comedy  of  his  blameless 

little  life. 

3* 


36  My  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER   III 

IT  is  with  an  uneasy  conscience  that  I  recall 
the  brief  episode  of  Mr.  Hanbury  Price.  There 
used  to  be  a  derisive  ring  in  Christina's  voice 
when  she  alluded  to  Mr.  Price  as  my  '  new 
young  man.'  She  knew  well  enough  that  he 
could  not,  by  the  wildest  stretch  of  imagina- 
tion, be  called  young.  Neither,  to  be  sure,  was 
he  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf.  No,  he  was 
worse  than  old ;  he  was  middle-aged.  Middle- 
aged  in  ideas  rather  than  in  person,  for  he 
affected  ajauntiness  of  attire,  which  he  was  able 
to  carry  off  to  a  certain  extent,  being  rather  big, 
with  a  high  colour,  and  having  hair  still  un- 
touched with  grey.  He  also  liked  to  be  thought 
what  in  early  Victorian  novels  would  have  been 
called  '  an  agreeable  rattle ' ;  but  then  half  of 
Mr.  Price's  conversation  consisted  of  projects 
and  invitations  which  somehow  never  came  off. 
It  was  wonderful  what  a  reputation  for  festive 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  37 

hospitality  Mr.  Price  had — among  people  who 
didn't  know  him  well. 

One  of  his  least  agreeable  idiosyncrasies 
was  his  curious  distrust  of  everybody.  He  was 
always  in  dread  of  being,  as  he  would  have  ex- 
pressed it,  '  done.'  So  suspicious,  indeed,  was 
he,  that  he  even  suspected  himself.  His  coups 
on  the  Stock  Exchange,  the  bouquet  he  had 
offered  over-night,  the  very  wine  he  drank, 
suggested  the  after-thought  that  he  had  made  a 
fool  of  himself — that  it  was  possible  he  might 
not  yet  get  the  desired  return  for  his  money. 
His  small  red-lidded  eyes,  of  a  watery  blue, 
continually  betrayed  this  recurring  idea,  while 
his  loosely-hung  jaw  and  mouth  gave  signs  of 
a  loquacious  temperament,  which  his  frequent 
and  abrupt  laugh  did  not  succeed  in  making 
genial. 

Though  he  did  not  mention  it  in  polite 
society,  Mr.  H anbury  Price  hailed  from  Tulse 
Hill.  In  that  eminently  respectable  suburb  he 
had  first  seen  the  light,  and  in  the  same  stucco 
mansion  there  still  resided  his  mother  and  a 
bevy  of  plain  unmarried  sisters,  to  whom  he 
used  to  journey  down  to  partake  of  early  dinner 
on  Sundays.  '  Never  mention  Tulse  Hill  to 


38  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

smart  people/  he  confided  to  me  one  day  with 
one  of  his  sudden  and  unmirthful  laughs  ;  '  if  I 
do,  they  want  to  know  if  it's  in  Yorkshire.' 

He  was  curiously  anxious  to  be  voted  popu- 
lar— at  least  among  the  right  sort  of  people — 
and  was  fond  of  alluding,  in  an  airy  way,  to  the 
parties  he  had  given  or  intended  to  give ;  but 
as  he  had  an  inherent  dislike  to  laying  out  half-a- 
crown  on  anything  which  was  not  strictly  neces- 
sary, Mr.  Price  must  have  undergone  untold 
tortures — if,  indeed,  these  festivities  ever  really 
came  off — in  his  efforts  to  be  classed  among  the 
bachelors  who  entertain.  Of  course,  it  was  only 
in  time  that  I  became  aware  of  all  these  amiable 
little  peculiarities,  for  at  first  sight  Mr.  Price 
gave  one  the  impression  of  being  a  good- 
natured,  talkative,  and  gregarious  member  of 
society,  with  an  inclination  for  giving  little 
dinners  and  theatre  parties. 

We  met  him  first  on  a  Saturday-to-Monday 
on  the  river,  at  the  house  of  a  vulgar  little 
woman  whose  portrait  father  was  painting. 
Mrs.  Bodley-Gallard  was  loud  in  his  praises  ; 
she  had,  it  transpired,  only  known  Mr.  H anbury 
Price  a  fortnight.  Our  hostess  was  one  of  those 
over-officious  people  who  say  things  that  make 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  39 

one's  blood  run  cold.  '  Now,  my  dear  Miss 
Wynman,'  she  whispered  to  me  on  Sunday 
night  after  dinner,  '  please  be  nice  to  the  poor 
young  man.'  Mrs.  Bodley-Gallard  belonged 
to  the  class  of  person  who  calls  everybody  a 
'young  man'  who  still  is  unmarried,  even 
though  he  be  on  the  wrong  side  of  fifty.  '  I 
assure  you  he  is  devoted — quite  devoted.  Now 
promise  me  you'll  think  about  it ! '  A  speech 
which  had  the  effect  of  making  me  extremely 
rude  to  Mr.  Price  when  he  joined  me  after 
dinner,  and  it  was  only  when  he  had  seen  us  into 
our  cab  at  Paddington  station  next  morning 
that  I  mentioned,  after  he  had  made  repeated 
enquiries  on  the  subject,  that  we  were  generally 
at  home  at  five  o'clock. 

He  was  not  long  in  coming,  and  when  he 
appeared  he  was  profuse  in  his  invitations. 
Would  we  do  a  theatre  ?  would  we  dine  with 
him  ?  He  was  thinking  of  taking  a  house  on 
the  river  for  August ;  he  hoped  that  mother 
would  bring  us  down  to  stay  with  him. 

The  least  we  could  do  was  to  accept  his 
offer  for  the  play.  We  were  to  dine  some- 
where first,  and  the  party  was  arranged  for 
the  following  Tuesday.  But  when  Tuesday 


40  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

arrived,  there  was  a  post-card  from  Mr.  Price 
to  say  that  the  proposed  festivity  was  postponed, 
and,  as  I  afterwards  found  out,  because  he  had 
been  vainly  soliciting  free  admissions  for  the 
Thalia  Theatre  from  a  young  man  whom  he 
knew,  who  played  the  footman  in  the  first 
piece.  Then,  when  the  night  at  last  arrived, 
we  found  we  were  to  partake  of  a  three-and- 
sixpenny  table  d'hote  dinner,  with  a  maddening 
accompaniment  of  glees  ;  and  this  from  a  man 
who  talked  continually  of  the  Amphitryon  and 
the  Bachelors'  Club.  That  damped  my  spirits 
to  begin  with.  Of  course,  when  one  is  under 
twenty,  one  does  not  care  much  for  the  niceties 
of  cooking  and  the  brand  of  the  champagne ; 
but  it  is  lowering  to  one's  dignity,  in  the  eyes 
of  one's  family,  to  be  asked  to  dine  at  table 
dhdte  with  travelling  Yankees  and  gaping 
provincials.  But  it  was  nothing  to  what 
followed. 

We  were  a  party  of  five — mother  and  I, 
and  a  couple  of  men  beside  our  host.  When 
we  were  at  last  landed  inside  the  doors  of  the 
Thalia,  we  found  that  Mr.  Hanbury  Price  had 
secured  seats  for  his  party  in  the  fourth  row 
of  the  dress  circle.  The  two  other  men  ex- 


HAVING  A   PROLONGED   ALTERCATION   WITH   THE  ATTENDANT. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  43 

changed  amused  and  surprised  glances  ;  mother 
and  I  declared  we  much  preferred  the  dress 
circle  to  a  box  or  stalls ;  and  Mr.  Price,  who 
began  to  dimly  discern  that  for  once  his 
economy  was  ill-timed,  spent  half  his  evening 
in  the  lobby,  having,  as  I  shrewdly  suspect, 
a  prolonged  altercation  with  the  attendant  on 
the  subject  of  a  charge  of  sixpence  for  each 
programme. 

It  grieves  me  to  think  what  we  must  have 
cost  Mr.  H anbury  Price  in  hansoms,  for  our 
house,  as  he  more  than  once  explained,  is  in- 
conveniently situated  for  omnibuses.  Whether 
he  really  imagined  himself  to  be  in  love  I 
have  never  been  able  to  decide,  but  he  was 
obviously  haunted  by  dreadful  forebodings 
as  to  the  expense  of  a  young  lady  with  my 
tastes  and  proclivities.  He  used  to  lecture  me 
about  taking  care  of  my  gowns,  and  suggested 
that  I  was  recklessly  extravagant  in  the  matter 
of  feather  boas  and  shoes.  .  .  .  One  day  he 
tried  to  persuade  me  to  attend  the  cookery 
classes  at  South  Kensington ;  and  another 
evening,  when  he  was  unusually  sentimental, 
he  asked  me  if  I  didn't  like  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Netting  Hill  ?  All  this  contributed  to 


44  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

Christina's  joy,  for  Mr.  Price's  struggles  between 
economy  and  the  tender  passion  were  really 
diverting  to  behold. 

I  think,  perhaps,  when  I  look  back  at  the 
whole  affair  dispassionately,  that  it  was  the  box 
of  chocolates  that  ended  Mr.  H anbury  Price's 
dream.  One  afternoon,  when  he  had  been  par- 
ticularly confidential,  he  asked  me,  at  parting, 
if  I  cared  for  sweets.  The  next  day  there 
arrived  from  the  Civil  Service  Stores  a  small 
cardboard  box  of  second-rate  chocolate  creams, 
addressed  to  me — to  me,  who  had  had  qualms 
of  conscience  that  he  might  have  telegraphed 
to  Paris  for  some  elaborate  offering  from  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens.  Telegraphed,  in- 
deed !  Hanbury  Price  was  not  the  man  to 
waste  his  money  in  telegrams,  when  a  letter, 
or,  better  still,  a  halfpenny  postcard,  would 
answer  the  same  purpose.  I  have  quite  a  col- 
lection of  postcards  in  his  handwriting,  for  he 
wrote  often  on  every  sort  of  matter,  and  he 
chiefly  used  the  cheapest  means  of  communi- 
cation. There  is  the  mass  of  postcards,  for 
instance,  which  relates  to  the  famous  dinner 
at  the  Crystal  Palace,  which  finally  ended  the 
affair. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  45 

We  tried  hard  to  get  out  of  it,  Christina 
and  I ,  but  it  was  of  no  avail,  and  in  the  end  we 
had  to  go.  Mrs.  Bodley-Gallard  was  to  be  the 
chaperon,  and  there  were  to  be  one  or  two 
other  men.  I  like  to  go  over  the  events  of  that 
day,  for  they  are  unique  in  my  history. 

Five  o'clock  was  the  hour  of  meeting  at 
Victoria  Station.  It  was  high  midsummer, 
and  bitterly  cold  and  damp.  Arrived  at  the 
station,  we  found  that  Mr.  Price  had  already 
taken  second-class  tickets  for  the  whole  party, 
but  that  he  was  not  above  recouping  himself 
from  our  purses  for  this  outlay.  '  Just  as  jolly 
second-class,'  declared  our  host,  '  if  you're  a 
party,  don't  you  know ; '  though  he  laughed 
awkwardly  when  he  found  that  a  couple  of 
damp,  plush-clad  babies,  with  their  respective 
mammas,  were  also  to  journey  down  with  us  to 
Sydenham.  Of  course  we  arrived  too  early, 
and  wandered  about  on  the  interminable  and 
dubious  boards  of  the  Palace  among  pieces 
of  greasy  paper — the  remnants  of  recent  feasts 
— until  seven  o'clock. 

But  dinner  came  at  last — with  a  lengthy 
harangue  as  to  which  table  Mr.  Price  had 
selected,  an  interview  with  the  manager,  and 


46  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

some  sour  Sauterne-cup.  Only  one  young 
man  had  turned  up  (the  other  two  had  pro- 
bably dined  with  Mr.  Price  before),  and  he 
chaffed  our  host  into  ordering  a  beverage 
more  suitable  to  the  damp  night ;  but  even 
that  failed  to  revive  the  flagging  spirits  of 
the  party.  Mournful  pauses  fell,  and  H  anbury 
Price's  eye  travelled  anxiously  after  the  cham- 
pagne bottle  as  it  went  its  way  round  the 
table.  Even  Mrs.  Bodley-Gallard  could  not 
pretend  that  she  was  enjoying  herself.  And 
then,  with  the  phenomenally  hard  peaches  and 
dried  figs,  came  the  final  blow.  There  were  to 
be  fireworks,  but  our  host  had  evidently  no  in- 
tention of  offering  us  covered  seats  from  which 
to  view  them.  '  One  of  you  young  ladies  will 
come  with  me  in  the  grounds,'  urged  the  ever- 
economical  Hanbury,  casting  a  sentimental  and 
meaning  glance  in  my  direction.  '  I'm  afraid 
I've  caught  cold  already,'  I  said  with  decision. 
And  then  Christina,  with  true  nobility,  came  to 
my  rescue,  in  answer  to  my  appealing  nudge : 
'  I  will,  if  you  like,'  she  said,  quickly ;  '  Peggy 
can't  wander  about  in  the  dark  and  the  cold  to- 
night. She's  nearly  got  bronchitis  as  it  is  ;  the 
child  must  stay  indoors.' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  47 

The  only  young  man  at  once  secured  seats 
for  the  chaperon  and  myself,  and  Mr.  H anbury 
Price  spent  what  he  may  have  intended  to  be 
the  eventful  night  of  his  life  wandering  about 
the  grounds,  under  a  dripping  umbrella,  with 
my  sister.  Christina's  account  of  the  evening 
is  extremely  diverting.  I  shall  always  be 
grateful  to  her  for  that  night.  Whatever  dif- 
ferences may  arise  between  us  in  after  years,  I 
shall  never  forget  from  what  an  awkward  inter- 
view Christina  saved  me. 

And  he,  for  his  part,  had  a  chastened  air  in 
the  railway-carriage  coming  home. 

We  left  town  very  soon  after,  and  when  I 
meet  Mr.  H  anbury  Price  on  rare  occasions  in 
the  Park,  or  at  some  crowded  party,  I  get 
ready  my  sweetest  and  most  deceitful  smile. 
But  Mr.  H  anbury  Price  invariably  looks  the 
other  way. 


48  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  gleam  of  velvety  grass  through  a  grey 
cloister,  a  bare  oaken  staircase,  leading  to  a  low 
room  lined  with  books  ;  a  cushioned  window 
seat,  a  summer  night,  and  the  distant  sound 
of  someone  playing  the  violin :  hese  are  the 
things  that  come  back  to  me  whenever  anyone 
pronounces  the  name  of  Frank  Harding. 

It  was  at  Oxford,  at  Commemoration,  that 
I  saw  him  first.  He  was  lying  on  his  back  on 
the  grass  in  one  of  those  small,  meagre  gardens 
in  the  Parks  which  make  the  joy  of  Oxford 
dons  and  their  wives,  and  their  troops  of  babies. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  being  photo- 
graphed— we  were  all  being  photographed — as 
is  the  pleasing  custom  during  Commemoration 
week.  We  had  gone  to  pay  a  call  on  the 
Talford  Browns — Talford  Brown  is  the  most 
eminent  authority  on  the  Phoenician  language 
in  Oxford — and  we  had  been  at  once  taken 


MY  FLOTATIONS  49 

into  the  garden,  where  tea  and  the  photo- 
grapher's camera  awaited  us.  There  we  found 
the  usual  Oxford  group  :  the  lady  with  smooth 
hair  and  clinging  gown,  one  or  two  vague, 
bearded  Fellows  or  tutors,  the  girl  in  a  pince- 
nez  and  badly-made  boots,  a  couple  of  small 
boys,  two  babies,  three  dogs,  and — Frank. 
Flat  on  his  back,  as  I  said  before  ;  his  six  foot 
one  of  length  arrayed  in  virgin  flannels  and  a 
Trinity  College  blazer. 

Frank  Harding  was  one  of  those  excep- 
tional beings,  an  undergraduate  on  easy — nay, 
even  familiar — terms  with  dons.  The  wives  of 
these  gentlemen  were  very  tolerant  of  Frank — 
indeed,  if  it  were  given  to  a  don's  wife  to  be 
capable  of  a  flirtation,  I  am  pretty  sure  they 
would  have  flirted  with  him.  As  it  was,  he 
strolled  in  and  out  of  those  villas  in  Norham 
Gardens  very  much  as  he  liked,  played  with 
the  babies,  teased  the  dogs,  and  helped  the 
ladies  of  the  house  in  their  perennial  little 
difficulties  with  the  Greek  syntax.  In  spite  of 
his  eccentricities  and  those  daring  caricatures 
of  the  dons  of  his  which  regularly  appeared  in 
Shrimpton's  window,  the  authorities  all  liked 
Frank,  and  everybody  was  ready  to  bet — if 

4* 


5°  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

one  can  picture  such  a  transaction  taking  place 
in  a  college  common-room — that  Frank  would 
take  a  First. 

We  stayed  to  dinner  at  the  Talford  Browns, 
and  we  were  much  struck  with  the  somewhat 
affected  simplicity  of  the  Oxford  interior. 
There  was  a  long  table,  sparsely  decorated 
with  attenuated  glass  flower-holders,  in  each 
of  which  were  placed  three  Iceland  poppies. 
Mrs.  Talford  Brown,  who  had  the  reputation 
of  being  a  wit,  and  was  understood  to  say 
scathing  things  about  the  undergraduates, 
herself  carved  the  cold  mutton  which  formed 
the  principal  dish  at  dinner.  Professor  Talford 
Brown  drank  toast-and-water.  We  had  a 
salad,  with  a  trifle  too  much  vinegar,  and 
we  talked  a  good  deal  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women,  and  of  the  recent  finals  for 
honours  which  had  just  come  off.  Christina 
sat  next  to  the  Professor,  and  I  could  see 
that  our  host  and  hostess  were  as  much  taken 
with  her  as  it  is  possible  for  Oxford  people  to 
be  with  a  mere  Londoner  ;  and  this  was  an 
inexpressible  relief  to  me,  for  every  minute  I 
felt  that  I  was  falling  lower  in  their  regard. 
An  irresistible  impulse  seized  me  to  say 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  51 

frivolous  things,  to  giggle  in  an  imbecile 
manner,  and  to  ask  Mrs.  Talford  Brown  if 
she  had  ever  been  to  the  Empire  ?  Do  what 
I  may  in  the  after  years,  I  know  that  I  shall 
ever  be  regarded  with  contempt  in  those 
Oxford  circles  in  which  '  plain  living  and  high 
thinking'  obtain.  But  Frank  Harding,  who 
sat  next  to  me,  by  no  means  shared  this 
opinion.  To  begin  with,  we  recollected  that 
we  were,  so  to  speak,  old  friends.  We  re- 
membered that  it  had  taken  two  nurses  and 
a  governess  to  make  peace  between  us  some 
fifteen  years  ago,  when  we  had  met  at  a 
children's  party  and  found  no  favour  in  each 
other's  eyes.  The  Hardings,  indeed,  were 
connections  of  my  mother's,  so  that  we  had 
seen  Frank  now  and  then  up  to  the  trying 
age  of  eight ;  but  after  that  they  had  gone  to 
live  in  the  country,  and  we  had  lost  sight  of 
them  for  years.  But  on  the  strength  of  my 
having  pulled  his  hair  some  dozen  years  ago, 
Frank,  in  his  unconventional  and  airy  way, 
insisted  on  calling  us  '  Christina '  and  '  Peggy.' 
After  dinner,  Mrs.  Talford  Brown  went  up 
to  put  the  twins  to  bed — nothing  was  ever 
allowed  to  interfere  with  this  domestic  rite — 


52  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

and  then  we  all  sat  in  the  ugly  little  square 
garden,  and  watched  a  great  yellow  moon 
travel  slowly  up  the  sky.  And  Frank  Hard- 
ing talked.  He  was  as  far  removed  from  the 
ordinary  football-playing  young  man  as  it  is 
possible  to  be.  To  begin  with,  his  father  was 
a  poet — one  of  our  finest  latter-day  lyrists — 
and  it  was  from  him  that  he  inherited  all  his 
sympathy,  his  feminine  intuitions,  and  his 
charmingly  impracticable  theories.  At  present, 
of  course,  he  was  only  a  clever,  somewhat 
lanky  boy  ;  but  his  beautiful  grey  eyes  made 
him  almost  handsome,  and  his  perfectly  easy 
manners  were  curiously  attractive.  He  had 
the  wildest  ideas,  and  was  the  sort  of  man  who 
might  found  a  new  religion,  commit  a  murder, 
devote  a  lifetime  to  the  East  End,  or  take  away 
his  neighbour's  wife  and  write  a  book  to  prove 
that  his  action  was  justified.  Some  years  have 
passed  since  then,  but  I  shall  never  be  as- 
tonished to  hear  anything  of  Frank  Harding, 
except  that  he  had  gone  into  the  City  and  was 
paying. taxes  in  Bayswater. 

We  saw  a  great  deal  of  Frank  in  the  days 
that  followed.  To  enjoy  Commemoration,  one 
must  be  twenty  and  never  have  stayed  in 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  53 

Oxford  before.  It  was  astonishing  how  much 
we  managed  to  get  into  that  week,  and  how 
much  of  Frank's  society  we  had.  .  .  .  There 
were  lazy  mornings,  punting  on  the  Cherwell, 
and  picnics  to  Godstow  and  Sanford  Lasher, 
the  ball  at  Christ  Church,  and  the  garden- 
parties  in  the  colleges,  for  which  we  put  on  our 
best  frocks,  and  stared  at  the  celebrities,  and 
then  hurried  home  to  a  cosy  tea  in  our  rooms, 
where  a  dozen  undergraduates  fought  deco- 
rously for  the  honour  of  handing  the  tea-cups. 
And  then  the  endless  strawberries,  the  valses 
that  were  quarrelled  for,  the  unstinted  devotion 
of  the  boys.  .  .  . 

I  am  old-fashioned  enough  to  like  a  young 
man  to  be  in  love.  Even  if  his  passion  burns 
for  someone  else,  one  likes  to  see  it,  and  it  is 
still  more  interesting  when  the  young  man  ex- 
pends his  ardour  on  oneself.  So  Frank  fell  in 
love  with  me,  and  I  liked  it.  ...  I  remember 
it  all  as  if  it  were  yesterday. 

There  is  the  sad-coloured  June  day — a 
harmony  in  soft  greys  and  greens — when  we 
went  to  pick  fritillaries  in  Mesopotamia.  It 
was  the  day  after  Commemoration  was  over, 
and  the  narrow,  willow-fringed  river  was  de- 


54  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

serted.  Afar  off  we  could  see  the  grey  spires 
and  towers  of  the  University  against  the  wide, 
white  sky,  while  across  the  fat,  buttercup-gilded 
meadows  came  the  mellow,  distant  sound  of 
Oxford  bells.  As  Frank  pushed  the  punt 
lazily  up  stream,  we  seemed  wrapped  in  a 
mysterious  green  silence.  We  left  the  punt 
where  the  old  chain  ferry  crosses  the  Cherwell, 
and  plunged  into  the  long  new  grass.  I  car- 
ried a  basket  for  the  fritillaries,  and  Frank  had 
brought  an  empty  soda-water  bottle  ;  a  proceed- 
ing which  puzzled  me  immensely,  until  I  found 
that  all  among  the  abundant  grass  studded  with 
June  flowers  there  leapt  and  danced  hundreds 
of  tiny,  nimble,  gay-hearted  frogs,  only  lately 
emerged  from  the  juvenile  or  tadpole  state. 
'  They  are  so  like  undergraduates ! '  I  cried, 
kneeling  in  the  long  grass  and  stretching 
depredatory  fingers  here  and  there,  while 
Frank  pretended  to  be  offended,  and  declared 
I  shouldn't  put  any  of  my  frogs  into  his  soda- 
water  bottle.  .  .  .  But  in  the  end  we  compro- 
mised, and  Frank  was  set  to  gather  the  queer, 
spotted,  purplish-brown  fritillaries,  whilst  I 
crammed  the  leaping  little  reptiles  into  our 
bottle.  .  .  .  And  so  the  June  afternoon  slipped 


Mv  FLIRTATIONS  55 

by,  until  the  clang  of  evening  bells  warned  us 
it  was  time  to  turn  homewards.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning,  when  the  train  which 
conveyed  us  back  to  town  steamed  out  of  the 
station,  the  two  things  I  carried  away  with  me 
as  a  remembrance  of  my  first  Commemoration 
were  a  lapful  of  La  France  roses  and  the  sight 
of  a  pair  of  wistful  grey  eyes. 

Frank  had  got  permission  to  stay  in  Oxford 
during  a  part  of  the  vacation  and  work,  but  his 
work  took  a  form  which  would  scarcely  have 
met  with  the  entire  approval  of  his  tutor,  seeing 
that  he  was  reading  for  a  First  in  classics. 
One  night,  a  few  days  after,  as  Christina  and 
I  were  dressing  for  an  evening  party,  I  was 
handed  a  letter  in  a  strange  handwriting.  It 
contained  a  poem,  and  the  poem  was  about 
myself!  After  Tony's  telegrams  and  H anbury 
Price's  post-cards  it  seemed  idyllic  to  have  a 
charming,  clever  young  man  writing  poems 
about — me !  I  waved  the  missive  triumphantly 
under  Christina's  nose,  and  made  myself,  as 
she  remarked,  odious  for  the  rest  of  the 
evening. 

'  He  says  I  am  like  the  morning  star  shining 
above  the  mists  of  a  murky  city,  and  that  the 


56  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

birds  sing  sweeter  at  my  foot-fall,  and  skim 
like  Hope  across  life's ' 

'  Life's  fiddlestick ! '  said  Christina.  '  Pass 
those  hot  tongs.  How  you  can  encourage  boys 
to  write  you  such  rubbish  I  can't  conceive. 
And  we're  an  hour  late  as  it  is.  Get  on  your 
cloak,  Peggy,  and  for  Heaven's  sake  throw  that 
drivel  into  the  fire.' 

But  I  naturally  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  and 
when  Frank  appeared  at  our  house  a  week 
later,  somewhat  sad  of  mien  and  looking  rather 
thin,  I  did  my  best  to  cheer  him  up,  though  we 
neither  of  us  said  a  word  about  the  poem.  He 
stayed  until  it  was  time  to  catch  the  last  train 
to  Oxford,  and  after  that  he  was  always  ap- 
pearing at  unexpected  moments.  He  used  to 
write  me  odd  little  abrupt  notes,  asking  if  I 
cared  to  see  him  ?  What  could  I  say  ?  It  is 
awkward  to  tell  people  that  you  don't  wish  to 
see  them.  Besides — besides,  I  did  want  to.  ... 

It  was  only  when  it  came  to  the  stern 
realities  of  life  that  I  took  Christina's  point 
of  view,  and  saw  what  an  impossible  thing  it 
was.  ...  I  remember  so  well  the  day  it  was 
finally  decided — a  cold,  drizzling  November 
afternoon.  He  had  rushed  up  from  the 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  57 

country,  where  he  was  living  now  that  he  had 
left  Oxford,  and  had  been  shown  into  the  long 
amber-and-white  drawing-room,  where  they 
had  forgotten  to  light  a  fire,  so  that  the  cold 
winter  twilight  wrapped  us  round  as  we  sat. 
Frank  had  taken  a  First,  and  there  was  some 
idea  of  his  getting  a  Fellowship.  But  he  did 
not  wish  to  stop  in  Oxford,  or,  indeed,  in  Eng- 
land. The  imperial  destinies  of  the  English 
race  was  one  of  his  hobbies,  and  he  asked  me 
to  give  up  London  and  go  to  North- Western 
Canada,  where  he  wanted  to  start  a  new  com- 
munity. Visions  of  Margaret  Fuller  and  the 
'  Blithedale  Romance,'  of  Laurence  Oliphant 
and  his  self-sacrificing  bride,  were  evoked  to 
tempt  me.  But  I  knew — I  still  had  sense 
enough  to  know — that  it  was  not  for  me.  .  .  . 
The  dreary  November  day  had  closed  in 
before  Frank  rose  to  go.  And  long  after  he 
had  gone  I  sat  on  in  the  cold  dark  room.  One 
by  one  the  lamps  twinkled  out  all  up  the  street, 
and  a  dreary  piano-organ  came  and  played 
some  threadbare  airs  from  a  comic  opera.  .  .  . 
Christina  was  very  nice  to  me  when  she  found 
me  sitting  alone  in  the  cold  and  the  dark,  for 
I  think  she  knew  I  had  been  crying.  .  .  . 


$8  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

Frank  Harding  has  always  refused  to  see 
me  since  that  day.  He  writes  sometimes ; 
the  last  time  I  heard  from  him  he  was  in  South 
Africa,  and  I  gathered  from  his  letter  that  he 
considered  the  amalgamation,  by  marriage,  of 
the  Boer  race  the  duty  of  all  English  settlers 
in  the  Transvaal.  .  .  . 

There  are  times — times  when  I  am  a  little 
tired  of  the  egotism  and  puerile  frivolity  of 
London  young  men,  tired  of  their  little  quar- 
rels and  their  little  admirations  for  fashionable 
divinities — when  I  would  give  worlds  to  see 
Frank  stretched  in  my  deck-chair,  his  grey 
eyes  gazing  into  futurity,  and  propounding 
even  the  most  amazing  of  his  curious  social 
schemes. 

And  he — does  he  ever  think  of  those  old 
Oxford  days,  days  full  of  cool  green  sha- 
dows and  quick  with  emotion,  over  yonder  in 
his  home  under  a  torrid  sky  ?  Probably  not — 
probably  not.  '  There  are  no  fields  of  amaranth 
on  this  side  of  the  grave '  some  poet  has  wisely 
written ;  '  There  is  no  name,  with  whatever 
emphasis  of  passionate  love  repeated,  of  which 
the  echo  is  not  faint  at  last.' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


59 


CHAPTER  V 


VAL  REDMOND. 


HE  was  curiously 
pretty,  incredibly  ma- 
licious, and  indisput- 
ably 'smart,'  with  a 
nice  house  in  Sloane 
Street,  where  he  en- 
tertained a  great  deal, 
and  a  little  following 
of  young  gentlemen 
who  copied  his  neck- 
ties and  buttonholes, 
and  whom  one  some- 
times saw  giggling 
together  in  corners, 
and  calling  each  other 
by  pet  names.  When 
one  of  them  wanted 
to  give  Val  Redmond 
a  birthday  present — 
in  that  set  the  young 


60  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

men  constantly  make  each  other  little  presents 
— he  chose  a  silver  vinaigrette,  which  Val  took 
out  with  him  to  dinner  all  that  season.  And 
yet  the  boy  was  very  far  from  being  a  fool.  If 
he  had  lived  in  less  degenerate  days,  and  had 
been  obliged  to  work  for  his  living,  he  might 
have  made  a  name  for  himself.  But  as  it  was, 
he  only  gave  amusing  parties ;  while  one  was 
haunted  by  misgivings  if  one  had  to  leave 
his  drawing-room  early — with  one's  reputation 
behind. 

When  he  gave  dinners  and  Sunday  lunches 
at  his  house  in  Sloane  Street,  his  aunt,  Lady 
Marchmont,  presided.  To  have  had  only  men's 
parties  would  not  have  suited  Val.  He  liked 
the  society  of  women,  and  particularly  of  old 
women ;  but  then  his  elderly  female  friends 
were  invariably  clever,  and  some  had  had,  in 
addition,  an  almost  historical  past.  '  Dear 
Julia  Calverly,'  he  would  say  of  the  Dowager 
Countess — he  had  the  most  astounding  way 
of  talking  of  his  elderly  dames — '  I  love  that 
woman.  It  is  as  good  as  reading  a  scandalous 
"  Memoire  pour  servir  "  to  talk  to  her.' 

'  Julia  is  veryyfo  de  sieclel  admitted  a  pasty- 
looking  youth  of  nineteen. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  61 

'Oh,  my  dear!  .  .  .  End  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, you  mean,'  smirked  Val. 

One  of  the  most  amusing  things  about  Mr. 
Valentine  Redmond  was  his  imperturbable 
coolness.  Though  hardly  two-and- twenty,  he 
had  none  of  the  tremors,  the  diffidences  of 
youth.  I  have  seen  him  talk  to  an  archbishop 
or  a  foreign  potentate  with  the  same  ease  with 
which  he  would  tackle  an  undergraduate  or  take 
a  young  lady  down  to  supper.  Not  that  you 
would  ever  have  caught  Val  Redmond  wast- 
ing his  acidulous  sweetness  on  a  young  girl. 
Women  under  thirty  seldom  went  to  his  house. 

One  of  his  least  pleasing  characteristics  was 
a  tendency  to  flout  and  pout.  He  was  con- 
stantly having  little  quarrels  with  his  intimate 
friends.  His  intimate  friendships  lasted,  on  an 
average,  exactly  six  weeks.  In  other  houses 
where  they  talk  scandal  it  is  usually  about 
acquaintances,  but  in  Val's  drawing-room  you 
generally  heard  his  bosom  friends  deprived  of 
their  reputations.  This  is  a  trait  which  makes 
society  feel  uneasy,  and  to  it  one  may  perhaps 
attribute  the  brief  duration  of  Val's  friendships. 
Ours,  for  instance,  though  it  was  never  per- 
fervid,  lasted  but  a  brief  two  months. 

5* 


62  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

The  Duchess  of  Birmingham  brought  him 
to  our  house.  She  was  going  to  have  her 
portrait  painted,  and  Val  was  brought  along 
to  help  to  decide  on  her  costume.  He  knew  a 
great  deal  about  clothes  ;  his  taste  was  charming, 
his  house  as  pretty  as  a  house  need  be.  Her 
Grace  was  a  stout  little  person  from  Philadel- 
phia, who  was  at  vast  pains  to  acquire  an 
English  manner.  Her  chief  desire,  as  far  as  I 
could  make  out,  was  to  be  painted  in  a  coronet. 
But  Mr.  Redmond,  with  his  head  on  one  side 
and  his  eyes  half  shut,  tabooed  the  idea  of  a 
diadem.  He  was  rather  in  favour  of  sables,  of 
dark  velvets,  of  heavy  brocades.  Father,  I 
remember,  was  furious  when  he  had  gone. 
'  Does  the  young  puppy  think  he  knows  more 
about  it  than  I  do  ?  Confound  his  impudence — 
why,  I  have  been  painting  portraits  for  twenty 
years.' 

And  yet,  after  all,  it  was  Valentine's  cos- 
tume which  was  chosen,  and  the  Duchess 
brought  him  again  more  than  once  to  see  the 
picture  as  it  progressed.  Father  always  liked 
to  have  me  in  the  studio  when  he  was  painting, 
so  that  every  time  he  appeared  we  made  a  little 
more  of  each  other's  acquaintance.  I  think  I 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  63 

was  rather  rude  to  him  than  otherwise,  but  he 
was  the  sort  of  person  who  disliked  gush — in 
women.  Gushing  was  too  much  the  prerogative 
of  his  '  boys,'  who  usually,  by-the-bye,  were 
heard  addressing  each  other  as  *  my  dear.' 

Sitting  on  the  oaken  staircase  of  the  studio, 
talking  to  Val  while  the  Duchess's  portrait  went 
on  below,  I  learnt  a  number  of  surprising  things 
about  London  society.  He  told  me  of  all  the 
houses  where  a  young  man  might  permit  him- 
self to  be  seen,  where  it  would  be  to  his  ad- 
vantage to  do  so,  and  where  it  would  be  fatal, 
absolutely  fatal,  for  him  to  appear.  '  I  had  the 
imprudence  to  lunch  with  the  Patterson-Tay- 
leurs,  those  new  people  in  Prince's  Gate ;  and 
though,  of  course,  a  lunch  doesn't  count  the  same 
as  a  dinner,  I  assure  you  it  was  weeks  before 
I  heard  the  last  of  it.  A  young  man  can't  be 
too  careful  where  he  goes,'  Val  confided  to  me 
one  day  with  a  rueful  air.  He  had  found  me 
filling  the  bowls  and  vases  with  roses,  and  had 
insisted  on  being  allowed  to  help.  It  was  one 
of  his  talents,  that  of  arranging  flowers.  He 
was  sitting  on  the  hall  table,  swinging  his  feet, 
and  holding  his  head  on  one  side  as  he  twitched 
an  amethyst-coloured  orchid  in  front  of  the 


64  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

light.  'JThere  is  the  question  of  dancing,  too. 
Ah,  not  that?  screamed  Mr.  Redmond  in  his 
rather  shrill  voice,  as  he  plucked  a  huge  poppy 
out  of  my  hand ;  '  you  can't  possibly  put  that 
in  blue  and  white  ;  Nankin  is  only  for  roses ! 
What  was  I  saying?  Oh  yes,  about  balls. 
Isn't  it  absurd  of  people  to  expect  one  to  dance 
everywhere  ?  .  .  .  Some  of  us  were  at  Mrs. 
Vandeleur's  ball  the  other  night — you  know 
the  woman  I  mean,  with  a  quantity  of  drab 
daughters  ? — and  she  actually  had  the  effrontery 
to  seize  me  by  the  elbow  and  ask  me  why  I 
wasn't  dancing  the  polka  ?  As  if  anyone  ever 
did  anything  but  sup  at  the  Vandeleurs !  and 
as  if  she  didn't  know  perfectly  well  that  one 
only  dances  at  the  houses  where  one  dines! 
I  resisted  for  a  long  time,  and  then  she  had 
the  shocking  taste  to  remind  me  that  she  had 
seen  me  leading  the  cotillon  at  the  Duchess's 
with  Lady  Susan,  when  she  knows  that  Lady 
Susan  is  one  of  the  most  amusing  persons  in 
London.  She  is  \\\e fin-de-siecle  old  maid.'; 

I  shall  never  forget  our  first  dinner  at  his 
house  in  Sloane  Street.  It  was  the  oddest 
party.  There  was  something  strange  and 
unusual  not  only  about  the  guests,  but  the  very 


Mv  FLIRTATIONS  65 

dishes  and  the  flowers.  The  dining-room, 
painted  and  decorated  like  that  of  a  Roman 
villa,  contained  nothing  but  the  table  and  one 
or  two  giant  palms  in  pots  of  old  faience.  The 
tablecloth  was  nearly  covered  with  a  mass  of 
pink  rose-leaves,  with  here  and  there  a  spray 
of  roses  thrown  carelessly  on  to  this  pink 
carpet.  A  huge  lamp  of  Oriental  workman- 
ship, hung  by  gold  chains,  lighted  up  the  mass 
of  rose  colour,  and  there  were  none  of  the 
usual  fripperies  of  a  lady's  table.  But  perhaps 
what  struck  one  most  on  glancing  round  the 
room  was  the  fact  that  all  the  men  were  boys, 
though  they  appeared  prematurely  old,  and 
that  all  the  ladies  were  elderly,  though  they,  to 
be  sure,  looked  unnaturally  young. 

'  The  glories  of  the  past,'  simpered  the  pale, 
clean-shaven  youth  who  had  taken  me  in,  sur- 
veying the  ladies  with  unabashed  effrontery. 
'  It  reminds  one  of  the  ruins  of  the  Acropolis, 
don't  you  know.' 

My  neighbour  got  very  confidential  as  the 
dinner  progressed.  He  gazed  at  me  critically 
with  tired  eyes,  under  lids  which  drooped  a 
little  at  the  corners. 

'  Do  you  know  our  host  well  ?     No  ?     A 


66  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

pity  he's  so  shockingly  malicious.  Gives 
charming  dinners — as  far  as  the  people  go — but 
I  don't  think  much  of  his  cook,  do  you  ?  Oh 
no,  I've  only  known  him  a  fortnight ;  he  in- 
sisted on  being  introduced  to  me  at  the  Vande- 
leurs'  ball,  and  I  thought,  as  he  is  a  great  friend 
of  one  of  my  dearest  friends — Tommy  Single- 
ton, you  know — that  he  would  be  sure  to  be 
nice.  .  .  .  And  I  really  do  think  he's  charming. 
He  would  take  no  denial ;  I've  dined  here 
already  three  times.  .  .  .  We  go  everywhere 
together.  Do  you  see  that  weird  old  person 
opposite  ?  She  says  such  quite  too  deliciously 
amusing  things  ;  she  is  a  great  friend  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales' s.  Tommy  Singleton  seems  in 
great  form  to-night.  He  is  so  very  charming ! 
I  must  introduce  you  to  him,  though  I'm  afraid, 
my  dear  Miss  Wynman,  that  you  won't  get  on 
very  well.  Tommy  is  so  dreadfully  frightened 
of  debutantes.  Don't  you  think  dear  Lady 
Rougemont's  new  toiipe'e  is  quite  delicious  ?  I 
do.  But  then  I  adore  the  meretricious  and  the 
artificial.  That  is  Miss  Van  Hoyt,  the  Ameri- 
can heiress;  she  always  wears  that  miniature 
of  an  old  gentleman  with  a  hook  nose  and 
powdered  hair.  ,<She  says  it's  her  grandfather  ; 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  67 

but  Tommy  Singleton  declares — and  he  had 
it  from  the  Duchess — that  Miss  Van  Hoyt's 
grandfather  kept  a  small  cheesemonger's  shop 
in  Ninth  Avenue.  'How  quite  too  weird  Lady 
Susan  looks ;  but  then  she  always  has  her 
gowns  made  from  remnants  bought  at  the 
summer  sales.  She  must  have  said  something 
dreadfully  improper  to  Val,  he  is  laughing  so ; 
look,  he  has  got  quite  pinkh  I  wonder  what  it 
is  ?  I  shall  ask  her  directly  ;  she  loves  to  have 
the  whole  table  listen  to  her  stories — though 
really  her  stories  are  (fun  raide  \  Lady  Susan, 
you  know,  is  not  afraid  of  le  mot  qui  choque! 

And,  of  a  truth,  the  ladies  at  Mr.  Red- 
mond's dinner-table  denied  themselves  nothing 
in  the  way  of  speech.  Nor,  when  the  cigarettes 
were  handed  round,  did  they  show  the  usual 
feminine  reluctance  to  light  up  ;  though  this  may 
have  been  a  protest  on  their  part  against  the 
effeminacy  of  the  age,  for  it  was  a  remarkable 
fact  at  Mr.  Valentine  Redmond's  parties  that, 
though  the  elderly  ladies  invariably  smoked, 
none  of  the  young  gentlemen  indulged  in 
nicotine. 

When  the  men  rejoined  us  in  the  drawing- 
room,  I  found  myself,  to  -jay  surprise,  the 


68  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

centre  of  a  small  group  of  attentive  youths. 
One  sat  on  a  footstool  at  my  feet,  another 
hung  over  the  back  of  the  sofa,  while  a  third 
reclined  among  the  cushions  at  my  elbow. 
And  they  all  asked  if  they  might  come  and  call. 
Afterwajrds  I  heard  that  Mr.  Redmond  had 
passed  the  word  that  I  was  '  charming,'  a 
dictum  which  they  always  accepted  without 
questioning.  Val  and  his  friends  invariably 
worshipped  in  a  little  crowd. 

After  that  night  Mr.  Valentine  Redmond 
was  pleased  to  indulge  in  one  of  his  wild  en- 
thusiasms. He  brought  all  his  boys  to  see 
me,  one  by  one,  and  insisted  that  they  should 
admire  me  as  much  as  he  did  ;  which  was  as 
tiresome  for  them,  poor  things,  as  for  me.  My 
photograph,  framed  in  gold  and  turquoises,  was, 
for  exactly  five  weeks,  a  conspicuous  object  on 
his  drawing-room  table  ;  after  which,  for  a  fort- 
night, it  stood  on  a  cupboard  in  a  dark  corner, 
and  finally,  I  hear,  disappeared  altogether — to 
the  limbo  where  the  rest  of  his  departed  '  en- 
thusiasms '  languish.  But  I  am  anticipating 
the  catastrophe.  For  six  weeks,  at  least,  Val 
and  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  each  other.  At  one 
of  our  big  parties  Mr.  Redmond  and  some  of 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  69 

his  young  friends  made  quite  a  little  sensation 
when  they  appeared.  They  were  all  clean- 
shaven, and  all  had  tired  eyes,  exaggerated 
buttonholes,  and  shoes  of  phenomenal  lumi- 
nosity. 

'  Gracious  heavens ! '  whispered  Christina, 
when  she  saw  them  all  file  in — they  always 
went  about  in  cabfuls — '  What  are  they  ? 
Where  did  you  find  them  ?  And  what's  to 
be  done  with  them  now  they're  here  ? '  But 
Valentine  Redmond  and  his  friends  never 
wanted  amusing.  They  all  had  a  passion  for 
being  introduced  to  other  young  men  of  their 
own  age,  and,  failing  that,  they  gathered  to- 
gether in  corners  and  smirked  over  their  own 
little  jokes. 

The  chief  amusement  of  these  boys,  I  soon 
found  out,  was  to  go  to  music-halls.  They 
spoke  of  Miss  Bessie  Bellwood  with  bated 
breath  ;  and  would  hear  of  no  other  comedians 
than  Mr.  Arthur  Roberts  and  Mr.  Albert 
Chevalier.  They  had  a  positive  infatuation  for 
acrobats,  for  those  stout,  bespangled  gentle- 
men who  tie  themselves  into  knots  and  balance 
themselves  on  each  other's  heads,  with  a  fixed 
smile,  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  spirited  waltz 


70 

tune.  It  was  Val  Redmond's  delight  to  get 
two  or  three  smart  women  to  dinner,  with  a  cor- 
responding number  of  boys,  and  then  to  take 
the  party  on  to  the  Empire  or  to  the  Pavilion. 

'  Why  do  you  like  tumblers  and  topical 
songs  so  much  ? '  I  asked  Val  one  day,  when 
I  had  refused,  for  the  fourth  time,  a  pleading 
invitation  to  make  one  of  a  party  to  the  Tivoli. 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  rather 
annoyed. 

'  Culture  is  such  a  bore,1  he  said ;  '  on  a 
besoin  de  sencanailler  quelquefois? 

This  London  idyl  lasted,  I  think,  nearly 
two  months,  and  then,  as  London  idyls  will,  it 
came  to  a  painless  death.  Its  end  was  hastened 
by  gossips,  and  it  was  killed  with  a  mot. 

f  Val  Redmond's  ambition  was  to  start  a 
salon  in  Sloane  Street,  but  he  has  only  suc- 
ceeded, so  far,  in  running  a  restaurant,'  Chris- 
tina had  said  on  one  of  her  unamiable  days. 

Someone,  of  course,  told  Val. 

The  rupture  left  no  sense  of  loss.  Though 
good-looking,  clever,  and  amusing,  Val  Red- 
mond's personality  somehow  'left  one  cold.' 
It  was  an  essentially  thin  nature.  Had  I 
ever  had  occasion  to  appeal  to  his  help,  his 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  j\ 

sympathy,  I  fancy  I  should  have  had  a  charm- 
ing, gushing  little  note  to  say  that  he  was  going 
out  of  town.  One  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that 
his  devotion  was  only  meant  for  dinner-parties  ; 
his  little  compliments  were,  like  his  bonbons, 
the  accompaniments  of  the  box  he  offered  you 
at  the  play. 

Once  a  year  or  so  we  still  go  and  dine  with 
Val.  The  swinging  lamp,  the  spreading  palms, 
the  wealth  of  hot-house  flowers  are  always 
there,  but  it  is  the  rarest  thing  to  find  the  same 
face.  Our  host  renews  his  friends  as  often  as 
the  bouquets  in  his  buttonhole. 


MY  FLIKTATJOMS 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  provincial  young  man  has  never  possessed 
any  attractions  for  me,  and  it  is  certain  that,  if 
I  had  not  gone  up  North  to  stay  with  Daisy 
Drysdale,  I  should  never  have  known  so  well 
such  a  striking  specimen  of  the  type  as  Dr. 
Styles.  He  was  not  a  bad  fellow,  but  he  was 
naively  pleased  with  himself  and  his  belong- 
ings. Your  provincial,  indeed,  is  rarely 
modest ;  in  the  limited  circle  of  country-town 
society  a  suitable  young  man  is  pursued  with 
too  much  pertinacity  and  ardour  to  have  any 
doubts  in  his  own  mind  as  to  his  personal 
desirability  and  manifold  charms. 

Dr.  Styles  was  a  stoutish  person  of  thirty- 
two,  with  nondescript  features  and  a  slow, 
portentous  manner,  along  with  a  large  and 
increasing  practice  in  the  suburb  of  Northaw, 
where  his  medical  skill  was  in  constant  request 
among  the  spinsters  and  widows  of  that  some- 


HIS   MEDICAL  SKILL  WAS   IN   CONSTANT   REQUEST. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  75 

what  damp  and  chilly  neighbourhood.  So 
highly  esteemed  were  his  services  in  the  sick- 
room that  these  ladies  would  send  for  him  at 
all  hours  of  the  day  or  night,  until  the  good 
doctor,  in  self-defence,  took  to  sending  his  red- 
haired  assistant  to  some  of  his  more  flagrantly 
imaginary  invalids. 

Daisy  Drysdale's  husband  was  a  manufac- 
turer in  Mudchester,  and,  like  other  manufac- 
turers, he  lived  as  far  away  from  the  factory 
chimneys  of  that  thriving  city  as  possible.  So 
his  brand-new  red-brick  mansion  lay  on  the 
other  side  of  the  suburb  of  Northaw,  and  the 
society  of  Northaw  supplied  nearly  all  Mrs. 
Drysdale's  intellectual  recreation.  Poor  Daisy ! 
how  she  missed  London!  And  what,  as  she 
plaintively  asked,  was  the  use  of  her  giving 
little  dinners,  seeing  the  component  elements 
of  which  her  parties  were  to  be  henceforward 
composed  ?  Still,  she  was  not  to  be  baffled, 
and  Mrs.  Drysdale  constantly  entertained. 
She  kept  open  house,  too,  and  was  delighted 
to  see  people  drop  in  of  an  evening.  The 
very  night  I  arrived,  by  some  chance,  Dr. 
Styles  came  in  about  nine  o'clock. 

They   were   playing  whist   at   one  end  of 

e  6* 


76  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

the  long  drawing-room,  and  I  was  set   down 
to  entertain  the  doctor  at  the  other. 

I  shall  not  easily  forget  that  night.  Accus- 
tomed to  the  manifestly  insincere  gushings 
of  London  young  men,  I  was  amused  at  the 
naive  manner  in  which  this  country  ^scula- 
pius  comported  himself.  For  a  long  time  we 
talked  of  the  last  exhibition  at  Burlington 
House,  for  he  remembered  father's  pictures, 
and  was  much  impressed,  apparently,  by  the 
fact  that  he  was  talking  to  an  Academician's 
daughter.  The  provinces  are  still  impressed 
by  the  Royal  Academy. 

They  played  more  than  one  rubber  of 
whist  that  night,  but  Dr.  Styles  remained 
until  the  end.  Before  he  left  he  had  offered 
to  lend  me  a  horse,  proposed  that  he  should 
drive  me  to  a  ruin  ten  miles  off,  and  expressed 
a  wish  that  I  should  know  his  three  sisters. 

The  drive  to  the  ruin  had  assumed  the 
proportions  of  a  picnic  before  three  days  were 
over.  Life,  as  someone  has  justly  observed, 
would  be  tolerable  if  it  were  not  for  its 
pleasures,  and  possibly  our  English  summers 
would  be  less  dreary  to  look  back  upon  were 
it  not  for  the  inevitable  picnic. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


77 


The  day  declared  itself  grey  and  chilly, 
with  watery-looking  clouds  hanging  despond- 
ingly  overhead ;  but  as  it  was  not  actually 
raining,  we  of  course  felt  obliged  to  start. 
The  doctor  drove  Mrs.  Drysdale  and  me,  and, 
as  he  had  to  stop  and  see  several  patients 
on  his  way  out  of  Northaw,  we  were  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  late  when  we  arrived  on 
the  festive  scene.  We  found  our  friends  re- 
clining on  rugs  and  cushions  in  a  damp  field, 
where  there  was  an  unmistakable  odour  of 
manure ;  we  found,  also,  that  they  were  already 
more  than  half  through  the  meal ;  for,  as  they 
justly  observed,  the  cold  had  made  them  un- 
commonly hungry,  though  the  quantity  of  well- 
picked  bones  and  empty  bottles  sufficiently 
proclaimed  the  fact.  But  the  mention  of 
empty  bottles  suggests  an  air  of  hilarity  which 
did  not  belong  to  this  particular  feast.  A 
number  of  total  abstainers  were  of  the  party, 
and  these  had  brought  their  own  supply  of 
perry,  lemonade,  and  mineral  waters,  and  now 
sat  apart  round  one  table-cloth,  surveying, 
with  somewhat  un-sheeplike  glances,  the 
goats  who  were  imbibing  shandy-gaff  and 
claret.  This  attitude  on  the  part  of  non- 


78  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

alcoholic  Northaw  not  being  conducive  to 
sociability,  the  party,  as  a  whole,  cannot  be 
said  to  have  been,  as  the  French  say,  of  'a 
mad  gaiety.'  The  doctor  did  his  best,  but  he 
had  not  the  light  social  touch.  If  he  offered 
you  the  salad,  it  was  with  a  portentous  air ;  or 
did  he  spread  you  a  cushion,  he  never  dropped 
his  professional  manner. 

Several  untoward  accidents  marred  what 
was  left  of  the  day.  A  young  lady  had 
hysterics  at  the  back  of  the  ruin,  and  the 
doctor,  who  was  fetched  just  when  he  was 
showing  me  the  view  from  the  topmost  turret, 
muttered  something  distinctly  ungallant  about 
his  prospective  patient  as  he  hurried  off.  A 
drizzle  began  just  as  the  tea  was  laid,  and  the 
rain  fell  in  dismal  earnest  as  we  drove  home 
to  Northaw. 

The  next  time  I  saw  our  friend  Dr.  Styles 
my  head  was  tied  up  in  a  flannel  shawl,  and  my 
throat  was  so  swollen  that  I  could  hardly  speak. 
The  doctor  had  been  called  in  professionally. 
The  Northaw  picnic  had  been  too  much  for  a 
Londoner  uninured  to  the  climate,  and  I  was 
down  with  a  malignant  sore  throat. 

The  doctor  came  every  day,  and  once,  he 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  79 

came  twice,  to  work  a  patent  inhaler,  and  paint 
my  throat  with  some  mysterious  compound. 
He  constantly  changed  the  treatment ;  it  was 
as  if  he  never  could  do  enough.  He  even 
used  to  bring  me  flowers — and  who  ever  heard 
of  a  doctor  taking  his  patient  flowers  ?  Daisy 
was  convulsed  with  amusement.  She  said  that, 
when  she  was  ill,  she  sometimes  used  to  have 
to  send  for  Dr.  Styles  two  or  three  times  be- 
fore he  appeared,  he  was  so  busy. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  I  was  better,  and  in 
ten  days  I  was  quite  well.  I  really  felt  very 
grateful,  for  I  knew  that  the  doctor  had  saved 
me  by  his  constant  care  from  a  dangerous  ill- 
ness. I  wonder  if  he  took  my  gratitude  for — 
something  else  ?  Anyway,  as  I  told  Christina 
when  she  scolded  me  for  the  whole  affair,  it 
was  not  my  fault. 

The  thing  came  quickly  to  a  crisis.  We 
were  all  invited  to  spend  an  evening  at  the 
doctor's  house.  In  the  North  they  have  a 
mysterious  meal  called  '  high  tea/  which  is 
apparently  a  source  of  no  little  comfort  and 
even  of  self-righteousness.  It  enables  the 
habitual  partakers  thereof  to  allude  witheringly 
to  the  late  dinner  indulged  in  by  inhabitants  of 


8o  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

the  South,  and  so,  if  you  are  invited  out  in 
Northaw,  be  sure  you  will  be  regaled  on  tea 
and  cold  chicken  (fearful  mixture!),  on  hot 
cakes,  jam,  marmalade,  and  currant  buns.  To 
this  evening  meal,  then,  we  were  bidden  by 
Dr.  Styles. 

He  lived  alone  with  his  sisters,  who  were 
curiously  like  him.  They  were  all  stoutish, 
with  nondescript  features,  and  had  solemn  and 
somewhat  stolid  manners.  To  see  all  four  of 
them  together  inclined  one  to  indecent  mirth. 
It  was  impossible  to  be  more  worthy,  more 
dull,  and  more  self-satisfied. 

They  sat  in  a  circle  in  the  long  drawing- 
room  on  rather  uncomfortable  chairs.  All 
three  of  the  Misses  Styles  took  great  interest 
in  church  matters,  or  at  least  in  the  curate, 
who  was  unmarried,  and  whom  they  consulted 
very  often  on  the  subject  of  soup  tickets  and 
flannel  petticoats.  The  curate,  and  a  boy  of 
about  nineteen  years  of  age,  with  a  shrill  voice, 
were  the  other  men  of  the  party.  Miss  Styles 
(the  eldest  of  the  three  Misses  Styles)  was 
a  capital  housekeeper  ;  everything  went  like 
clockwork  in  the  doctor's  roomy  house.  The 
early  dinner  was  served  to  a  minute.  Two 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  81 

o'clock  was  the  hour.  If  the  doctor  were 
out,  the  meal  proceeded  with  unfailing  punc- 
tuality, a  slice  of  mutton  being  kept  hot  in  the 
oven  for  the  master  of  the  house.  On  the  long, 
bare  lavender-coloured  walls  of  the  drawing- 
room  hung  several  water-colours  by  Miss 
Louisa ;  indeed,  the  Misses  Styles  were  con- 
sidered to  have  a  pretty  taste  for  art.  They 
painted  everything  within  reach  with  sprawl- 
ing red  roses  or  startling  white  daisies,  the 
doctor  being  of  opinion  that  his  sisters'  artistic 
talent  was  of  the  first  order.  Miss  Ada,  too, 
was  musical,  and  sang  songs  by  Pinsuti  and 
Milton  Wellings.  The  doctor  liked  Miss 
Ada's  vocal  efforts.  Miss  Emily  was  literary  ; 
at  least,  she  assiduously  read  Miss  Edna  Lyall 
and  Mr.  Rider  Haggard,  and  of  these  authors 
we  discoursed  solemnly  until  '  tea '  was  an- 
nounced. 

The  table  groaned  with  good  things :  with 
buttered  toast,  with  salad,  with  vague  dishes 
covered  with  custard,  with  ham,  with  quivering 
blanc-mange.  The  curate,  it  transpired,  had  a 
phenomenal  appetite,  though  he  coughed  and 
expostulated  when  helped  to  a  third  serve  of 
pressed  beef.  Both  he  and  the  shrill-voiced 


82  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

boy  had  been  among  the  abstaining  sheep  at 
our  picnic  ;  this  evening  meal,  therefore,  washed 
down  by  tea  and  coffee,  had  obviously  no  terrors 
for  them.  The  conversation  was  not  of  the  kind 
that  dazzles.  There  were  frequent  pauses, 
during  which  Miss  Ada  made  several  bald 
statements  about  a  forthcoming  village  concert, 
and  the  doctor,  wishing  to  show  his  knowledge 
of  the  town,  solemnly  inquired  if  I  had  seen 
Mr.  Irving  in  Henry  VIII.  ? 

The  air  was  full  of  ominous  portents.  The 
doctor's  manner,  when  he  invited  me  for  the 
second  time  to  partake  of  cold  chicken,  or 
pressed  upon  me,  with  Northern  hospitality, 
the  currant  cake,  was  full  of  a  certain  protect- 
ing pride,  while  a  humbly  conquering  expres- 
sion was  in  his  eyes  when  they  rested  upon 
me.  It  was  with  'intention' — as  the  French 
say — that  he  showed  me  the  photograph  album, 
full  of  aunts  and  cousins,  after  tea.  The 
good  doctor  looked  quite  sentimental  when, 
later  on,  Miss  Ada  warbled  a  romance  with  a 
waltz  accompaniment,  entitled  '  The  Love  that 
will  Never  Fade.'  I  began  to  feel  restless. 
More  than  once' did  I  cross  the  room,  engage 
either  of  the  Misses  Styles  in  feverish  con- 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  83 

versation — I  always  ended  by  finding  the  doctor 
at  my  elbow.  At  last  I  resigned  myself  to  my 
fate,  and  sat  down  to  talk  to  him.  I  imagined 
that  the  sanitary  state  of  the  suburb  of  Northaw 
would  be  a  safe  subject,  and  one  unlikely  to 
lead  to  a  declaration  of  a  tender  nature,  but  in 
this,  it  appeared,  I  was  mistaken.  We  got  on 
to  the  subject  of  fevers,  and,  to  convince  me  on 
a  certain  point,  the  doctor  suggested  a  reference 
to  one  of  the  medical  books  in  his  surgery. 
Once  inside  the  little  room,  which  lay  just 
across  the  passage,  Dr.  Styles  shut  the  door 
and  advanced  towards  me  with  that  particular 
expression  which  is  so  intolerable  in  a  man  one 
doesn't  care  for. 

I  put  on  my  most  indifferent  manner,  and 
inspected  with  much  interest  the  rows  of  medi- 
cal books  in  their  glass  case. 

'  So  kind  of  you,'  I  said  hurriedly,  to  fill  up 
the  dreadful  pause,  '  to  take  so  much  trouble 
Most  doctors  only  laugh  at  you  if  one  wants  to 
know  any  real  fact — about  your  dreadful  trade,' 
I  added  with  flippancy,  seeing  that  the  man 
was  not  listening  to  a  word  I  was  saying,  but 
was  gazing  at  me  as  an  amiable  snake  might 
be  said  to  regard  a  sparrow. 


84  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

'  Trouble  ! '  he  said  at  last.  '  How  can 
anything  be  a  trouble  that  is  done  for  you  ? 
I  wish  you  would  let  me  tell  you  how  much 
I — how  much  I ' 

A  sharp  rap  at  the  door  interrupted  this 
speech.  A  servant  came  in. 

'  Please,  sir,  Mr.  Brown  is  very  bad,  and 
Mrs.  Brown  says,  will  you  come  at  once,  and 
bring  some  of  the  drops,  and  she  hopes  you 
won't  be  long.' 

'  A  three-mile  drive ! '  said  Dr.  Styles  with 
a  sigh,  'and  I  shall  not  see  you  again  to-night.' 
He  took  my  hand  and  held  it  fast.  '  I  will 
bring  the  book  to-morrow  morning.  Shall  I 
have  a  chance  of  seeing  you  alone  ?  Try  to 
be  alone  when  I  come,'  and,  wrenching  my 
hand  violently,  the  doctor  disappeared. 

'  Daisy,'  I  said  hurriedly  in  the  carriage 
going  home,  '  I'm  sorry  to  say,  dear,  I  shall 
have  to  go  home  by  the  10.15  to-morrow.  I — 
I  had  a  telegram  just  before  we  came  out.' 

1  You  had  a  fiddlestick !  What  nonsense, 
Peggy !  Why,  you  came  to  stay  a  month,  and 
you've  hardly  been  twelve  days.' 

1  Twelve  days  ?  Good  heavens  !  Why, 
how  has  he ?' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  85 

'  Oh,  it's  that,  is  it  ?  And  so,  you  don't 
like  him  ?  Well,  I  think  you're  silly.  You 
might  do  much  worse.  How  much  better  to 
settle  down  with  someone  like  that  than  with 
one  of  your  flipperty  London  young  men. 
He's  sensible,  clever,  a  good  fellow,  well  off, 
and  very  fond  of  you ' 

'The  10.15,  please,  Daisy.' 

And,  sure  enough,  by  the  10.15  I  went. 
As  the  Yorkshire  fields  flew  behind  me 
on  my  rapid  journey  back  to  London,  the 
whole  thing  seemed  like  some  nightmare  from 
which  I  had  just  awoke.  Great  heavens ! 
From  what  had  I  not  escaped  ?  A  lifetime 
of  high  tea,  suburban  gossip,  and  provincial 
self-sufficiency,  of  rose-bedecked  door-panels, 
the  novels  of  Mr.  Rider  Haggard,  and  'The 
Love  that  will  Never  Fade.' 

I  am  very  fond  of  Mrs.  Drysdale,  but  it 
will  be  a  long  time  before  I  again  trust  myself 
to  the  seductions  of  that  suburb  of  Mudchester. 


86  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER  VII 

IT  was  not  very  tragic.  The  first  time  I  saw 
him  and  the  last  time  I  saw  him  I  laughed ; 
and  the  interval  was  not  unamusing. 

Quite  suddenly  he  had  become  the  fashion. 
Some  great  lady  in  London — I  forget  who — 
had  heard  Claud  Carson  recite  one  of  his  own 
love  songs  at  a  concert  got  up  for  a  charity, 
and  she  had  invited  him  to  her  house,  where 
he  had  met  other  women  of  fashion,  and  be- 
tween themselves,  in  their  little  set,  they  had 
determined  to  make  him  the  mode.  It  was 
at  one  of  the  Duchess  of  Birmingham's  nicest 
parties — one  of  her  small  musical  evenings — 
that  we  first  saw  him. 

I  had  been  away  from  town  a  month  or  two, 
and  was  out  of  touch  with  London  things,  so 
that  when  someone  said  excitedly  to  me  in  the 
supper-room,  '  Oh,  come  upstairs  ;  Claud  Carson 
is  going  to  recite ! '  and  I  saw  all  the  women 


J&rH* 


i    A'  * 

I ,  ~  i"  •   '    \ 

\     V 

MR.    CARSON   RIPPLED  A  FEW  CHORDS  OVER  THE   KEYS. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  89 

trailing  out  of  the  room  at  once,  I  turned 
to  the  nearest  young  man  to  ask  what  it  all 
meant. 

'  Oh,  some  cad  with  long  hair,  who  rolls  his 
eyes  about,  and  recites  erotic  poems  ;  meet 
him  at  every  blessed  place  you  go  to,'  was  the 
answer,  as  my  informant  helped  himself  to 
plovers'  eggs  and  reached  for  a  fresh  bottle  of 
champagne.  Upstairs,  however,  in  the  music- 
room,  there  was  a  flutter  of  excitement.  A 
Royal  Duchess  was  present :  an  event,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that  this  new  artist  was  going  to 
perform,  favouring  that  kind  of  electric  buzz  in 
the  air  which  is  so  precious  to  the  ears  of  an 
anxious  hostess.  Round  the  grand  piano  was 
a  line  of  pretty  women,  all  with  their  eyes  turned 
towards  the  seated  figure  at  the  music-stool. 
There  was  perfect  silence  as  Mr.  Claud  Carson 
rippled  a  few  chords  over  the  keys. 

I  peeped  over  the  shoulders  of  two  or  three 
people  in  front  of  me,  and  sawa  white  face  framed 
in  long  blonde  hair,  which  fell  in  one  straight 
lock  across  the  forehead.  The  eyes,  which  were 
fixed  on  the  cornice  of  the  ceiling,  were  dark 
grey  in  colour,  and  full  of  what  young  ladies 
call  '  soul.'  The  nose  was  thin  and  straight, 

7* 


9O  My  FLIRTATIONS 

the  lips  full  and  beautifully  curved,  the  jaw 
rather  square  and  pathetically  thin.  It  was  a 
face  out  of  a  Burne- Jones  picture. 

Then  the  long  white  hands  moved  rhythmi- 
cally over  the  piano,  and  Claud  Carson,  sweep- 
ing an  ineffably  weary  glance  along  the  line 
of  pretty  faces  bent  towards  him,  finally  fixed 
his  gaze  on  the  Royal  Duchess,  and  began  to 
recite,  speaking  his  words  in  a  rather  monoto- 
nous tone,  to  an  accompaniment  of  ripples  and 
chords. 

'  Ah,  he's  going  to  do  that  charming 
thing  from  his  "  Roses  of  Passion,"  the  book 
which  he  is  just  going  to  publish,'  somebody 
whispered  excitedly.  '  I  like  him  best  when  he 
recites  his  own  poems.' 

First  Mr.  Claud  Carson  told  us  how  he  had 
met  a  young  person  in  the  twilight's  mellow 
time,  and  how  the  daisies  had  kissed  her  feet, 
but  how  she,  swerving  beneath  his  glances,  had 
flitted  through  the  net-work  fine,  of  buds  which 
blow,  in  hawthorn's  glow;  but  eventually  it  ap- 
peared the  lady  had  not  proved  so  coy,  for  in 
the  second  verse  Mr.  Carson  very  justly 
remarked : 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  91 

But  if  you  linger  in  that  place 
Beneath  the  hawt/iorns'  interlace, 
And  I  may  gaze  upon  your  face, 
Shall  love  forego  sweet  passion' s  floiv  ? 
The  stars  alone  look  down  on  high, 
T/ie  winds  alone  repeat  your  sigh, 
No  eyes  our  lonely  tryst  descry  : 

They  little  know,  they  little  know. 

Fans  waved  in  time  to  the  quaint  rhythm, 
necks  were  craned  forward,  eyes  drooped  and 
glistened,  there  were  pensive  smiles  on  curved 
lips.  It  was  not  very  good,  but  there  was 
something  magnetic  about  the  strange  per- 
formance. Claud  Carson  effectually  '  filled 
the  stage.'  While  he  was  reciting  it  was  im- 
possible to  look  in  any  other  direction. 

And  if  the  second  twilight  break, 
faint  bird-notes  sweet  the  morning  make. 
And  wond'ring  world  now  reawake 
And  life  reflow,  with  love  and  woe  ; 
The  new  day  finds  us  parted,  sweet, 
And  new  worlds  open  at  our  feet, 
Once  strange — as  strangers  shall  we  meet  f 
We  little  know,  we  little  know. 

He  finished  in  a  whisper  which  just   filtered 
through  his  clenched  teeth. 

An  elderly  gentleman  coughed  severely, 
and  a  couple  of  young  ones,  with  faces  as 


92  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

unemotional  as  their  glistening  shirt-fronts,  ex- 
changed a  swift  expressive  glance.  The  Royal 
Duchess  beamed  approval,  and  signified  that 
the  reciter  should  be  presented  to  her.  The 
whole  performance  was  a  delightful  interlude 
in  the  decorous  solemnity  of  her  exalted  exist- 
ence. I  was  the  only  woman  in  the  room  who 
laughed. 

'  I  suppose  it's  an  acquired  taste,  like 
caviare  or  absinthe,'  I  said  to  a  smart  woman 
near  me ;  '  but  one  has  got  to  get  accustomed 
to  it.  Why  does  he  play  the  piano  all  the  time 
if  he's  going  to  recite  ? ' 

The  smart  lady  surveyed  me  with  a 
withering  glance. 

*  It's  the  most  charming  thing  in  London,' 
she  said  ;  '  Claud  Carson  is  a  delightful  person.' 

All  heads  were  turned  in  the  direction  of 
the  young  poet  as  he  stood  talking  to  the 
Royal  Duchess,  his  beautiful  eyes  fixed  on  her 
face,  while  occasionally,  with  a  pretty,  fatigued 
movement,  he  raised  a  white,  graceful  hand  and 
pushed  back  the  lock  of  blonde  hair  from  his 
forehead.  Before  the  short  conversation  was 
over,  she  had  invited  him  to  come  and  see  her. 

'  It's    stupid,    hardly    decent,    and    almost 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  93 

incomprehensible,'  said  Christina,  as  we  drove 
home ;  '  so  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  became 
the  rage  this  season.' 

And  sure  enough  he  did.  One  found  him 
everywhere  one  went,  and  I  had  grown  quite 
accustomed  to  the  thrilling  tones  of  his  lan- 
guorous voice,  the  enigmatic  look  in  his  deep- 
set  eyes,  when  one  night  he  asked  to  be  in- 
troduced to  me. 

'  Everywhere,'  said  Mr.  Carson,  as  he 
dropped  into  a  chair  at  my  side,  '  everywhere 
I  see  your  face.  .  .  .  But  until  to-night  I  did 
not  know  who  you  were/  he  added  softly. 

His  tone,  his  manner  annoyed  me. 

1  Perhaps  you  didn't  ask ! '  I  suggested, 
though  an  instant  later  I  was  sorry  that  I 
should  have  allowed  myself  to  be  flippant  with 
a  strange  young  man  of  whom  I  did  not 
altogether  approve. 

And  then  he  did  something  which  showed 
that  he  was  clever.  He  gazed  at  me  in  perfect 
silence  for  several  minutes,  until  the  memory  of 
my  flippant  words  had  quite  died  away. 

'  Come,'  he  said  at  last  in  his  thrilling  tones, 
'  let  me  give  you  some  strawberries.' 

I    took   his   arm    and   went      We   had   a 


94  Mv  FLIRTATIONS 

charming  time  that  night.  Claud  Carson  was 
less  absurd  than  he  looked.  Under  his  little 
affectations  there  was  a  boyish,  frank  per- 
sonality which  was  really  attractive  ;  and  when 
he  could  forget  the  fact  that  all  the  women  in 
the  room  were  staring  at  him,  and  remember 
that  he  was  not  expected  to  keep  up  the 
character  of  a  modern  Minnesanger  while  he 
helped  you  to  quails  and  plovers'  eggs,  he  was 
a  nice,  simple  boy.  Afterwards,  by-the-bye,  I 
heard  that  he  was  at  least  eight-and-twenty ; 
but  he  was  one  of  those  fair,  clean-shaven 
individuals  who  never  look  as  if  they  had 
emerged  from  their  teens. 

'  I  want  to  come  and  see  you,'  said  Claud 
Carson  that  night,  holding  my  hand  as  we 
stood  under  the  portico  waiting  for  the  carriage  ; 
'  when  may  I  come  ? ' 

'  We  are  at  home  on  Sundays  at  five.' 

'  Not  then,  not  in  a  crowd  of  people,'  he 
pleaded.  '  I  want  to  see  you — alone.' 

'Oh,  in  that  case,'  I  answered,  laughing, 
'don't  come  on  a  Sunday.  Come — say  on 
Wednesday.  And  then  you  will  see  Christina.' 

But  Christina,  when  he  finally  appeared, 
found  him  impossible.  She  said  that  his  hands 


My  FLIRTATIONS  95 

were  too  white,  and  that  the  shape  of  his  collar 
was  revolting.  She  did  not  like  his  poems ; 
generally,  she  did  not  understand  what  they 
meant,  and  when  she  did,  she  said  she  wished 
she  hadn't. 

Claud  Carson  began  to  come  a  good  deal. 
He  was  always  dropping  in  at  tea-time,  and  he 
never  failed  to  look  reproachful  if  he  found 
me  pouring  out  tea  for  Mr.  Mandell,  Val 
Redmond,  or  Tony  Lambert.  He  would  sit 
in  a  low  chair,  leaning  back,  and  regarding  me 
with  half-closed  eyes — a  habit  which  Chris- 
tina declared  was  insufferable.  Indeed,  she 
generally  remembered  she  had  letters  to  write 
when  Mr.  Carson  called. 

'  I  have  come  to  offer  you  what  I  prize 
most  in  the  world/  he  said  one  day  when  we 
were  alone. 

1  But  I  never  take  things — anything  but 
flowers,  I  mean — from  people/  I  objected, 
hastily. 

'Ah,  but  you  will — you  must — accept  this. 
I  dedicate  to  you  my  "  Roses  of  Passion,"  the 
firstborn  of  my  brain.  Dear  child,  they  are 
yours/  He  handed  me  a  bit  of  paper,  on 
which  was  written : — 


96  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

<ToM.  W. 

'  These,  my  first  trembling  chords  on  the 
instrument  of  Life,  I  dedicate  to  you.  Perfect 
soul,  framed  in  your  strange,  subtly -sweet  beauty, 
I  worship  you  from  without,  with  never  a 
thought  of  earthly  guerdon.  Fools  only  wish  to 
pluck  the  star  from  the  heavens,  the  lily  from 
its  stem.  I  leave  my  star  in  the  blue  vault,  my 
lily  in  its  garden. 

'London,  February,  189 — 

1  Oh,'  I  said,  '  how  nice  !  Only,  you  mustn't 
put  "  To  M.  W." ;  you  had  better  put  three 
stars.  I  shall  know  who  you  mean.' 

We  sat  and  talked  for  a  long  time  in  the 
twilight.  It  was  the  end  of  February,  and  the 
late  afternoon  was  tinged  with  the  pale,  won- 
dering light  of  an  early  English  spring.  The 
trees  outside  were  swelling  with  purple  buds, 
and  through  the  black  branches  there  was  the 
gleam  of  a  tender,  rosy  sunset.  It  was  the 
time  of  confidences,  and  the  kind  of  day  one 
says  all  sorts  of  things  one  doesn't  mean,  in  a 
soft,  regretful  voice,  just  because  they  sound 
well  and  seem  to  fit  into  the  emotional  hour. 

Claud  Carson  knelt  on  the  window-seat,  his 


My  FLIRTATIONS 


97 


blonde  head  turned  to  pale  gold  against  the 
window-pane. 

'  You  have  helped  me  more  than  any 
woman  I  have  ever  known/  he  said  at  last, 
with  a  sigh. 

1  Have  I  ? '  I  asked,  touched,  flattered,  and 
pleased.  I  was  at  an  age  when  a  girl  likes 
to  be  called  a  '  woman.'  '  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
how !  What  have  I  ever  done  for  you  ? ' 

He  gazed  at  me  for  a  few  seconds,  and  then 
turned  abruptly  away. 

'  You  have  made  my  life  happier/  he  said. 
In  another  instant  he  had  pressed  my  hand, 
and  was  gone. 

Christina's  dry  tones  called  me  back  to 
mundane  things. 

1  And  so  you  have  had  that  impossible 
young  man  here  for  hours/  said  my  sister, 
bursting  into  the  room  with  all  the  matter-of- 
fact  and  common-sense  which  an  afternoon  out 
of  doors  brings  with  it.  '  May  I  ask  if  you 
intend  to  make  a  fool  of  him,  too  ? ' 

'  To  make  a  fool  of  him !  No,  I  don't 
think  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  do  that.' 

And  my  words,  to  be  sure,  came  true. 

A  little  while  after,  we  were  driving  one 


98  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

afternoon  towards  Hammersmith,  when  sud- 
denly the  coachman  pulled  up.  A  huge  dray 
had  got  across  the  road,  and  for  a  few  moments 
we  were  obliged  to  wait  while  a  small  crowd 
urged  the  horses  this  way  and  that.  We  had 
stopped  in  a  street  of  small  stucco  houses, 
whose  weedy  front  gardens  were  suggestive  of 
anything  but  rural  delights.  And  then,  as  we 
waited,  a  thin,  undersized  child  of  seven  ran 
out  of  one  of  the  open  hall-doors — a  door  which 
revealed  a  vision  of  a  perambulator,  a  shabby 
oilcloth,  and  a  framed  oleograph — and  hung 
staring  over  the  green-painted  rails. 

'  'Ow  dare  you  ?  Come  in  directly,  Ermyn- 
trude,'  said  a  querulous  voice ;  and  for  an 
instant  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  rather  good- 
looking  young  woman  in  a  cheap  tailor-made 
gown.  '  I  shall  tell  your  father.  You  are  a 
most  disobedient  child ! '  A  moment  later  a 
young  man  strode  down  the  gravelled  path, 
seized  the  undersized  child  in  his  arms,  kissed 
her,  and  carried  her  indoors.  Just  as  he  dis- 
appeared in  the  doorway  our  eyes  met.  The 
young  man  was  Claud  Carson. 

'  So  he  is  married — your  modern  Minne- 
sanger,'  said  Christina  drily,  holding  her  chin 


99 

up  and  looking  straight  in  front  of  her  as  we 
drove  on. 

'Apparently/  I  said,  shrugging  my  shoul- 
ders and  gazing  at  the  coachman's  back.  I 
was  not  to  be  outdone  in  imperturbability  by 
Christina. 

'  He  has  married  the  landlady's  daughter — 
poets  generally  do.  But  it  was  considerate  of 
him,'  she  continued,  with  a  twinkle  in  the 
corner  of  her  eye,  "  to  leave  his  star  in  the  blue 
vault,  his  lily  in  its  garden,"  seeing  that  he  has 
already  got  one  lily  and  a  promising  bud  or 
two  in  Khartoum  Gardens,  Hammersmith.' 

And  then  we  both  fell  back  on  the  cushions 
and  gave  way  to  uncontrollable  giggles.  I 
laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  my  cheeks. 

'  When  will  you  learn  sense  ? '  sighed 
Christina. 


ioo  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

'  You  are  so  good  and  dear/  repeated  Julian 
Clancy  for  the  second  time,  in  his  well-bred, 
drawling  voice,  detaining  my  hand  for  an  in- 
stant in  the  obscurity  of  his  tapestry-hung  hall. 
Mother,  who  always  remembers  she  has  an 
appointment  in  Hampstead  or  West  Kensing- 
ton just  when  one  is  beginning  to  enjoy  oneself, 
was  already  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden  path. 
Mr.  Julian  Clancy  slowly  raised  the  hand  he 
held  to  his  lips.  He  was  perfectly  aware  that 
this  last-century  salute  was  considered  irresist- 
ible by  his  women  friends. 

He  was  a  charming  host.  All  the  guests 
at  Mr.  Clancy's  parties  seemed  on  easy  terms 
The  men  called  each  other  by  their  Christian 
names  ;  the  ladies  had  quaint  little  nicknames 
for  their  friends.  An  atmosphere  of  intimate 
chat  hung  about  the  rooms.  The  women  spoke 
in  cooing  tones,  and  had  interminable  confi- 
dences to  make,  while  the  men  laughed  softly 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  101 

as  they  leant  forward  to  listen  with  an  amused 
air  in  the  veiled  lamplight.  It  was  distinctly 
a  house  where  one  enjoyed  oneself.  Julian 
Clancy  would  ask  a  dozen  people — most  of  them 
well  known — and  you  would  find  them,  when 
you  arrived,  chatting  with  soft,  intimate  voices 
in  obscure  corners,  or  loitering,  as  they  whispered 
the  latest  malicious  story,  in  the  draped  door- 
ways. Not  that  Julian  Clancy  himself  ever 
listened  to  malicious  stories.  Though  he  wrote 
novels  of  modern  society,  lived  all  the  year 
round  in  London,  and  was  now  over  forty  years 
of  age,  it  was  astonishing  how  guileless,  how 
optimistic,  he  remained.  His  vague  face  and 
worn  smile  suggested  only  the  most  indefinite 
emotions,  and  yet  the  warmth  of  his  language 
was  extraordinary.  Everyone  he  knew  was 
1  a  dear  or  '  a  dear  person,'  while  the  more 
favoured  ones  were  'so  perfectly  good  and 
sweet.'  Mr.  Clancy  would  not  listen  to  a  word 
against  anyone.  How  could  people  be  so 
horrid  as  to  say  that  his  dear  Lady  Rougemont's 
beautiful  red  hair  was  dyed,  or  that  his  charm- 
ing Charlie  Deuceace  was  not  the  most  exem- 
plary of  husbands  ?  People  were  so  unkind  I 

Well  off  and  well  connected,  he  mixed  in  the 

8* 


IO2  My  FLIRTATIONS 

best,  as  well  as  the  rapidest,  sets  in  London, 
but  what  he  really  worshipped  was  the  '  cele- 
brity.' It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  all  the  Leo 
Hunters  are  of  the  feminine  sex.  Julian  Clancy 
always  had  the  last  celebrity — and,  failing  that, 
the  last  notoriety — at  his  parties  in  St.  John's 
Wood. 

He  adored  St.  John's  Wood.  Celebrated 
artists,  actors,  dramatists  were  all  to  be  found 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  his  door ;  he  could 
run  in  and  out  of  famous  studios,  and  catch  dis- 
tinguished actors  for  his  little  suppers  on  their 
way  home  from  the  theatres.  He  tolerated  a 
countess  (if  she  happened  to  be  amusing),  but 
a  new  dancing  girl  set  him  raving.  He  used 
to  ask  great  ladies  to  meet  the  most  extraordin- 
ary people,  and  somehow  or  other  they  always 
came.  His  Sunday  dinners — of  eight — were 
most  amusing.  One  never  knew  if  one  would 
sit  next  to  a  Guardsman,  a  burlesque  actor,  or 
the  representative  of  a  foreign  Power.  He  knew 
everybody,  and  everybody  wanted  to  know  him. 
The  Honourable  Julian  Clancy,  second  son  of 
Lord  Basingstoke,  had  a  position  in  society 
which  is  not  often  the  lot  of  younger  sons.  But 
then,  to  be  sure,  his  brother  had  no  children, 


My  FLIRTATIONS  103 

and  was  already  separated  from  his  wife.  In 
all  human  probability  Julian  would  one  day 
succeed  to  the  earldom.  And  yet  he,  for  his 
part,  was  chiefly  preoccupied  with  literary  fame. 
Every  other  year  or  so  he  published,  at  his 
own  expense,  a  rather  second-rate  novel,  which, 
however,  had  one  merit.  It  was  usually  in  one 
volume,  with  fat  print  and  wide  margins,  so 
that  when  he  presented  it  to  his  friends,  with 
charming  little  enthusiastic  phrases  written  on 
the  first  page,  they  were  able  to  get  a  good 
idea  what  it  was  about  without  being  at  the 
pains  to  read  it.  About  the  time  his  book 
appeared,  he  usually  gave  one  of  his  pleasantest 
parties,  where  one  saw  him  with  one  arm  round 
the  neck  of  some  young  man  who  wrote  reviews 
for  the  penny  papers. 

In  former  days,  when  he  was  younger  and 
less  gushing,  Mr.  Julian  Clancy  had  been  in 
the  diplomatic  service,  and  had  wandered  in 
many  lands.  He  never  wandered  now.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  never  left  London.  Every 
year,  when  other  people  were  making  their 
autumn  plans,  he  would  point  to  his  garden, 
with  its  pear-trees  and  hollyhocks,  its  plashing 
fountain  and  cooing  doves,  and  ask  you  plain- 


IO4  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

tively  why  he  should  leave  it  ?  September, 
January,  or  June  he  would  stroll  down  St. 
James's  Street  to  his  club  at  five  o'clock.  Every 
year,  as  soon  as  August  came,  a  paragraph 
went  the  round  of  the  gossipy  papers  chro- 
nicling the  fact  that  Mr.  Julian  Clancy  never  left 
town.  People  thought  it  so  original  and  charm- 
ing ;  he  had  quite  a  little  notoriety  on  that  account 
alone.  But  London,  to  be  sure,  was  a  passion 
with  him.  The  pavement  of  Piccadilly  was  to  him 
what  the  boulevard  is  to  the  Parisian.  He 
was  miserable  five  miles  from  Bond  Street,  and 
I  have  known  him  to  rave  about  the  exquisite 
effects  one  saw  in  a  London  fog.  Julian  Clancy 
made  a  cult  of  the  metropolis. 

His  house — in  springtime  buried  in  a  white 
cloud  of  pear-blossom,  in  summer  shady  with 
spreading  chestnut-trees  and  limes — was  one 
of  the  prettiest  things  in  town.  A  low,  two- 
storied  cottage,  with  queer-shaped  rooms  built 
out  at  odd  angles,  it  was  draped,  arranged,  and 
furnished  with  an  artist's  hand.  His  music- 
room,  with  its  polished  floor  and  Oriental  walls, 
contained  nothing  but  a  grand  piano,  a  huge 
spreading  palm,  and  a  low,  downy  divan  run- 
ning round  the  sides  ;  but  through  a  Cairene 


FATIGUED,    EXPRESSIONLESS   FEATURES. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  107 

archway  you  stept  into  a  drawing-room  crowded 
with  nick-nacks,  hung  with  old  brocade,  and  as 
dainty  as  the  boudoir  of  some  eighteenth-cen- 
tury beauty.  In  the  dining-room  the  prim, 
thin  Chippendale  furniture  was  ranged  against 
a  pale-coloured  wall,  while  the  round  table,  with 
its  fine  damask  and  Georgian  silver,  and  the 
soft  lamplight  illumining  a  great  bowl  of 
flowers,  was  somehow  suggestive  of  brilliant 
talk  and  dainty  fare.  But  Mr.  Clancy  was 
always  modest  about  Jiis  possessions.  '  It's  so 
sweet  of  you  to  like  my  things,'  he  would  say 
deprecatingly  to  some  fashionable  lady  who 
was  going  round  his  rooms  sniffing  up  ideas. 
'  I  never  care  for  anything  I  have.  It's  so  good 
of  you  to  like  my  poor  little  cottage.' 

He  came  very  often  to  our  Sunday  evening 
parties,  when,  about  twelve  o'clock,  one  saw  his 
fatigued,  expressionless  features  and  his  su- 
perb shirt-front  appear  in  the  studio  doorway. 
He  was  one  of  the  men,  by-the-bye,  who  look 
their  best  at  night,  the  sharp  black  and  white 
of  man's  evening  dress  giving  him  a  distinction, 
an  elegance,  which  he  somewhat  lacked.  At 
first  I  did  not  know  why  he  came  so  often. 
Father — to  whom  he  regularly  offered  up  some 


io8  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

of  his  choicest  phrases — never  liked  him,  and 
took  no  particular  pains  to  conceal  the  fact. 
To  mother  all  young  men — especially  in  the 
evening — are  alike.  She  looks  upon  them  as 
necessary  evils  at  our  parties,  but  makes  few 
distinctions  between  them.  Christina  was 
away  that  season,  so  there  remained  only  my- 
self. As  the  years  had  passed  on  I  had  had 
experience  enough  to  know  that  a  man  who 
is  heir-presumptive  to  an  English  earldom 
is  not  likely  to  preoccupy  himself  with  a 
middle-class  damsel  of  modest  dowry.  What 
brought  him,  then,  so  often  to  our  house  ? 
Time,  as  usual,  revealed  the  secret,  and  in 
this  wise. 

July,  with  its  damp  garden  parties,  was  upon 
us.  Mr.  Julian  Clancy's  annual  outdoor  fete 
was  one  of  the  events  of  the  late  summer. 
He  arranged  the  thing  charmingly,  and  people 
intrigued  for  cards  to  what  was  sure  to  be  an 
amusing  party.  This  year  it  was  rumoured  he 
was  to  have  the  whole  of  the  Frivolity  chorus 
girls,  attired  as  milkmaids,  to  dance  skirt 
dances  on  his  velvety  lawn.  So  everybody 
wanted  to  go. 

For  some  time  beforehand  Mr.  Clancy  was 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  109 

indefatigable  in  his  calls  at  our  house.  He 
talked,  as  much  as  he  ever  talked  about  any- 
thing of  his  own — for  he  was  only  enthusiastic 
about  other  people  and  their  parties,  which 
were  always  '  perfectly  charming  '  or  '  too 
lovely ' — of  his  forthcoming  entertainment. 

'I  do  so  hope  you'll  come,'  he  said.  '  I 
want  you  all  to  come.  It  would  be  so  sweet 
and  good  of  you  all  to  come  to  my  little  party.' 

'  Oh,  we  don't  go  about  in  droves,'  I  said, 
laughing.  '  Won't  one  or  two  of  the  family  be 
enough  ?' 

'Of  course  I  only  insist  upon  you,'  said 
Julian,  with  a  shade  of  his  old  diplomatic 
manner  ;  '  but  I  should  be  so  proud  if — your 
father  would  come.' 

A  light  flashed  over  me.  This,  then,  was 
a  possible  explanation  of  Mr.  Julian  Clancy's 
devotion.  He  was  hunting  a  celebrity — he 
wanted  my  father !  How  dense  I  had  been, 
to  be  sure.  Father  was  not  only  a  famous 
and  successful  Royal  Academician,  but  he  was 
one  of  the  most  amusing  people  in  town. 

The  day  of  the  garden  party  I  was  all 
diplomacy  and  white  muslin.  Early  in  the 
afternoon  I  captured  my  distinguished  parent 


no  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

and  insisted  on  his  accompanying  me  to  St. 
John's  Wood.  I  was  not  going  to  appear 
without  him,  as  a  second-rate  substitute  for  a 
celebrity. 

The  sleepy  suburban  road  was  alive  with 
carriages  and  cabs  as  we  drove  up,  and  at 
every  turn  you  nodded  to  some  well-known 
face.  The  clean  shaven  profile  and  heliotrope 
necktie  of  Duncan  Clive,  the  actor,  were  seen  in 
a  victoria  side  by  side  with  Lady  Susan's  extra- 
ordinary hat  (her  ladyship  had  long  ago  given 
up  chaperons  as  superfluous) ;  Val  Redmond, 
Tommy  Singleton,  and  the  pale-faced  boy 
foamed  out  of  a  hansom,  all  blue  buttonholes 
and  light  gloves ;  the  Duchess  of  Birmingham 
was  driving  up  in  the  ducal  chariot,  and  had 
brought  Miss  Van  Hoyt ;  there  was  no  end 
to  the  people  one  knew.  t  Inside  the  house  it 
was  dark  and  hot,  and  in  the  Oriental  music- 
room  you  could  hardly  stand,  for  a  famous 
prima  donna  was  lamenting,  in  a  piercing 
soprano  voice,  and  an  indifferent  Italian  accent, 
the  absence  of  her  beloved,  while  a  small,  red- 
haired  cavalry  major  told  a  funny  story  in  a 
high,  penetrating  voice,  until  several  people 
said  '  Hush  ! '  and  turned  round  and  frowned. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  \\\ 

In  the  dining-room  one  saw  a  vista  of  backs 
pushing  and  struggling  over  a  buffet,  and  there 
was  an  acrid  odour  of  coffee  and  strawberries 
as  you  passed  the  open  door  to  reach  the 
garden. 

Outside,  the  scene  was  pretty  enough.  In 
the  green  garden  the  pink,  and  mauve,  and 
white  dresses  of  the  women  made  clear  patches 
on  the  verdure,  and  smiling,  fatigued  faces 
greeted  each  other  from  under  fantastic  hats. 
A  Viennese  band  played  beneath  a  huge  cedar  ; 
the  Frivolity  girls,  with  their  crinkled  white 
frocks  and  painted  cheeks — looking  pinker 
than  ever  under  their  starched  sun-bonnets — 
stood  huddled  together  in  the  distance,  and 
nudged  each  other  as  they  recognised  several 
smart  young  men,  who,  with  imperturbable 
faces,  were  handing  water-ices  to  the  season's 
debutantes. 

Presently  the  band  struck  up  a  catchy  air, 
and  the  girls,  forming  into  a  line  against  a 
background  of  ivy,  flipped  their  loose  skirts 
and  executed  a  series  of  swaying  movements 
with  fixed,  mechanical  smiles.  The  youngest — 
a  thing  of  seven,  with  thin,  pointed  knees — 
had  the  most  surprisingly  wooden  smile  of  all ; 


H2  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

she  was  like  a  miniature,  but  exaggerated,  copy 
of  the  showy  girls  who  towered  above  her. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  applause  when  they 
had  done,  and  only  the  smart  young  men 
appeared  to  be  but  vaguely  interested  in  the 
performance. 

Our  host,  as  usual,  was  charming,  but  one 
felt  that  something  distracting  was  in  the  air. 
One  saw  it  in  Mr.  Julian  Clancy's  preoccupied 
face  as  he  gushed  a  little  over  us  both,  making 
a  civil  effort  when  we  entered.  Something  im- 
portant was  going  on  inside  the  house,  from 
the  glances  which  our  host  kept  turning  to- 
wards the  open  drawing-room  windows.  What 
could  it  be  ? 

We  were  not  long  left  in  doubt.  '  Oh, 
have  you  heard  ? '  cried  Val  Redmond,  detain- 
ing us  with  a  delighted  giggle.  '  Nankowsky, 
the  Russian  who  says  he  has  been  to  the 
North  Pole,  is  in  there  in  the  drawing-room. 
He  is  such  a  delightful  person.  They  say  he 
is  a  leper,  but  I  don't  believe  that,  though  I 
dare  say  you  can  catch  it  from  the  Esquimaux. 
If  I  were  you  I  should  only  look  at  him 
through  the  window,  in  case  it  is  true,  you 
know.  He  certainly  is  a  very  odd  colour.' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  113 

This,  then,  was  the  reason  of  Mr.  Clancy's 
tepid  enthusiasm  over  father's  appearance. 
Nankowsky,  the  famous  Nankowsky,  was  a  very 
great  celebrity — the  newest  of  the  season — 
and  he  was  now  holding  an  informal  Iev6e  in 
the  drawing-room,  where  people  were  being 
introduced  to  him  in  shoals.  Mr.  Julian 
Clancy,  it  was  obvious,  had  forgotten  his 
ardour  for  my  father  in  the  triumph  of  secur- 
ing a  lion  with  a  more  penetrating  roar. 

'  Dear,'  I  said  twenty  minutes  later,  when 
we  had  wandered  round  the  garden,  shaking 
hands  right  and  left,  '  I'm  afraid  this  sort  of 
thing  bores  you.  Let's  go  home  and  have  tea 
together  in  the  studio — just  you  and  I.' 

We  looked  for  our  host,  but  he  was  not 
visible.  As  we  crossed  the  hall,  however,  we 
saw  his  back  for  an  instant  through  the  open 
drawing-room  door.  He  was  quite  absorbed, 
and  did  not  hear  us  going  out.  Mr.  Julian 
Clancy  was  bending  over  the  new  celebrity, 
and  we  could  hear  him  saying,  in  his  slow, 
well-bred  tones : 

1  It  was  so  good  and  lovely  of  you  to  come ! ' 


H4  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER    IX 

IT  was  at  the  Royal  Academy,  at  the  private 
view,  that  I  first  saw  Mr.  Albert  Morris. 
Outside,  the  bright  spring  sunshine  bathed 
Piccadilly  with  its  unaccustomed  warmth,  gild- 
ing the  tiny  crinkled  leaves  in  the  Green  Park, 
making  blue  shadows  under  the  crowded  omni- 
buses, and  illuminating  the  clinking  harness  of 
the  horses  which  passed,  in  a  continual  proces- 
sion, into  the  courtyard  of  Burlington  House. 

Inside,  up  the  wide  staircase,  with  its 
crimson  carpets  and  its  banks  of  flowers  and 
plants,  all  London  was  elbowing  its  way  to  the 
crowded  galleries.  People  who  had  intrigued 
successfully  for  a  ticket  wore  a  triumphant, 
satisfied  smile ;  the  critics  were  preparing  their 
most  stolid,  yet  important  air  ;  women  journal- 
ists felt  for  their  pencils  and  note-books,  eagerly 
demanding  the  names  of  over-dressed  ladies ; 
and  the  painters — the  Royal  Academicians  and 


MR.    MORRIS   WAS  A   PERSON   OF   IMPORTANCE. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  117 

the  few  famous  '  outsiders  '  who  are  invited  to 
the  private  view,  collected  in  little  knots  round 
some  much-discussed  canvas,  or,  plucking  each 
other  by  the  sleeve,  hurried  through  the  rooms 
in  search  of  some  striking  picture  by  an 
unknown  brush. 

But  Mr.  Morris  hurried  neither  here  nor 
there,  for  he  was  a  person  of  importance.  He 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  big  room,  casting 
cursory  glances  at  the  pictures  on  the  walls, 
and  shaking  hands  with  a  small  procession  of 
people  who  passed  incessantly  in  front  of  him  ; 
with  fashionable  ladies,  who  stopped  to  give 
him  several  fingers,  and  then  passed  on  with  a 
well-turned  phrase  and  a  non-committing  smile  ; 
with  journalists,  judges,  actors,  and  cabinet 
ministers.  We  came  upon  him  suddenly, 
father  and  I,  and  when  I  had  been  introduced, 
he  seemed  all  at  once  to  have  a  great  deal  to 
say.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Albert  Morris  was  about  fifty  years 
old,  and  had  a  humorous  eye.  He  was  rather 
fat  and  rather  red,  and  I  think  his  hair  and 
moustache  were  very  carefully  dyed.  He  was 
absurdly  rich.  One  of  the  big  weekly  papers 

belonged  to  him,  and  he  owned  a  good  many 

9* 


1 1 8  MY  FUR  TA  TIONS 

shares  in  the  opera.  Mr.  Morris  also  bought 
pictures,  and  was  invited  nearly  every  year  to 
the  Royal  Academy  banquet.  Everything  he 
touched  turned  to  gold  ;  he  had  the  true  in- 
stinct of  his  race  for  money.  Albert  Morris 
made  fabulous  sums  out  of  the  most  unlikely 
things,  and  they  say  that  he  was  once  seen 
driving  through  the  City  in  a  four-wheel  cab 
piled  to  the  ceiling  with  Argentine  bonds. 
He  never  went  farther  away  from  town  than 
Brighton,  in  order  to  be  always  within  an  hour 
of  the  Stock  Exchange.  But  with  all  his 
money  and  his  influence  he  was  the  simplest 
of  men,  and  had  only  two  strongly  developed 
tastes — a  liking  for  a  good  story  and  a  pretty 
woman.  His  house  in  Piccadilly  was,  it  is 
true,  a  little  over-gorgeous  ;  but  then  he  had  left 
the  furnishing  and  decorating  to  a  well-known 
firm,  who  had  somewhat  overdone  the  Louis 
XVI.  period.  Nobody,  however,  including  the 
owner,  seemed  to  think  there  were  too  many 
carved  gilt  legs  and  florid  brocades,  and  in  the 
celebrated  white  dining-room,  with  its  panels 
by  Chaplin,  Mr.  Albert  Morris  used  to  give 
little  suppers  to  Royalty. 

He  was  a  self-made  man,  and  he  believed 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


119 


in  money.  He  had  bought  everything :  his 
position,  his  influence,  his  friends,  his  news- 
paper, his  house,  his  pictures,  his  books  and 
curios,  the  love  of  women,  and  the  devotion  of 
his  servants.  There  was  only  one  thing  he 
dreaded,  and  that  was  a  thing  from  which  his 
millions  could  not  save  him.  He  was  horribly 
afraid  of  death.  Possible  accidents  or  illnesses 
were  a  constant  anxiety  to  Mr.  Morris  :  he  was 
childishly  frightened  of  infectious  diseases,  he 
never  went  to  bed  without  a  ladder  outside  his 
window  in  case  of  fire,  and  he  never  sat  be- 
hind— or  on — a  strange  horse.  If  his  little 
finger  ached,  or  he  caught  a  cold  in  the  head, 
he  consulted  the  greatest  physicians  in  London, 
and  he  always  carried  a  tiny  golden  flask  con- 
taining brandy,  for  someone  had  once  told 
him  he  had  a  weak  heart  Poor  Mr.  Morris, 
quaking  in  the  midst  of  his  millions!  They 
found  him  one  morning — but  I  am  antici- 
pating. 

Though  of  thoroughly  Jewish  origin,  it  was 
astonishing  how  British  and  patriotic  was  my 
new  friend  Mr.  Morris.  His  newspaper  was 
Conservative  and  highly  orthodox,  and  in  time 
of  war-scares  there  was  an  uncompromising 


I2O  My  FLIRTATIONS 

Jingoism  in  its  leaders.  They  were  inspired 
by  the  proprietor.  The  Church,  the  State,  the 
House  of  Lords  (who  knows  if  the  estimable 
little  man  may  not  have  cherished  hopes  of  a 
peerage  himself?)  were  the  things  that  Mr. 
Morris  believed  in.  In  religion  he  did  not 
tolerate  Broad  Church,  nor  in  politics  any 
dallying  with  democrats.  But  these  things, 
after  all,  were  but  a  pastime ;  the  opera, 
especially  during  the  last  year  or  two,  was  the 
serious  preoccupation  of  his  life. 

'  Charmin'  little  girl  of  yours,  Wynman,'  I 
overheard  him  whisper  to  father  as  we  were 
moving  on  ;  '  might  bring  her  one  night  to  the 
opera,  now.  Always  the  same  box,  you  know. 
Pit  tier,  No.  100.  Say  Thursday  ; '  and  without 
waiting  for  an  answer,  for  he  was  evidently 
accustomed  to  having  his  wishes  acceded  to, 
Mr.  Morris  slipped  away,  and  was  presently 
in  deep  confabulation  with  the  Leader  of  the 
Opposition. 

On  the  following  Thursday  we  found  our- 
selves in  Mr.  Morris's  opera- box. 

It  was  a  brilliant  night.  All  the  beauties, 
with  all  their  tiaras  on,  were  ranged  in  dazzling 
groups  round  the  house.  Two  famous  sisters 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  121 

(one  married  to  a  marquis,  and  the  other  on 
the  way  to  espouse  a  German  princeling)  were 
dressed  exactly  alike,  and  exhibited  precisely 
the  same  pensive  smile  and  the  same  drooping 
bouquet.  They  were,  however,  to-night  en- 
tirely alone,  filling  the  large  box  with  their 
pink  sleeves  and  their  radiant  beauty.  Just 
above  them,  Lady  Susan  received  a  procession 
of  smart  young  men  all  the  evening.  One 
after  the  other,  the  smart  young  men  were 
convulsed  with  laughter ;  you  could  see  their 
stolid  faces  getting  pink  and  crinkled  as  they 
bent  forward  to  catch  what  the  lady  said.  In 
the  next  box  a  well-got-up  mother  and  a  pretty, 
badly-dressed  girl  shared  the  same  cavalier 
between  them ;  it  was  impossible  to  tell  which 
he  admired  the  least.  An  elderly  lady,  in  pale 
blue  satin  and  black  pearls,  exhibited  a  young 
and  sheepish-looking  husband.  Mr.  Valentine 
Redmond  was  supposed  to  be  occupying  a  stall, 
but  his  little  smirk  and  his  huge  white  button- 
hole appeared  in  every  box  on  the  grand  tier 
that  night.  A  number  of  '  cultured  '  people 
in  the  stalls  had  open  books  of  the  score  on 
their  knees,  and  never  raised  their  heads  to 


122  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

the  stage  all  the  evening.     They  were  playing 
Tristan  und  Isolde. 

Mr.  Albert  Morris  swept  with  his  glasses 
the  crimson  horse-shoe,  on  which  the  white 
shoulders  and  clear  dresses  of  the  women  made 
spots  and  dots  of  light,  and  settled  himself  in 
his  chair  with  a  small  grunt  of  approval.  He 
felt,  in  a  way,  responsible  for  that  brilliant 
house ;  he  was  one  of  the  people  who  had  re- 
vived the  moribund  opera,  and  had  made  it 
once  more  the  most  fashionable  lounge  in 
London.  True,  he  distrusted  Wagner  and  all 
his  works,  but  he  knew  there  was  '  money  in 
him' — for  a  season.  He  was  more  proud  of 
his  sway  behind  the  scenes  than  of  any  other 
influence  he  possessed.  He  prided  himself  on 
discovering  budding  Pattis  and  Melbas,  on 
unearthing  unknown  tenors  and  discovering 
baritones  of  genius.  The  potins  of  the  green- 
room, the  little  quarrels  behind  the  scenes, 
were,  I  verily  believe,  the  joy  of  his  existence. 
He  had  always  a  good  story  to  tell  about  the 
stars  of  the  company.  To  spring  a  new  prima 
donna  on  the  town  was  the  height  of  his 
ambition. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


123 


One  liked  Mr.  Albert  Morris  at  once.  He 
was  immensely  comic,  and  had  a  slow,  fat, 
drawling  voice  which  made  his  stories  irre- 
sistible. He  was  also  delightfully  candid. 
Like  all  the  men  of  his  race,  he  was  easily 
touched  by  music,  and  when  the  famous 
soprano,  in  white  satin,  with  her  hair  down  her 
back,  gave  forth  an  operatic  lament,  I  noticed 
a  large  tear  coursing  its  way  down  Mr.  Albert 
Morris's  rubicund  cheek  and  immaculate  shirt- 
front. 

'  Ah,  these  things  make  me  feel,  Miss 
Wynman,'  he  whispered ;  '  but  then,  you  see, 
I'm  a  wicked  old  sinner.  It's  only  you  charm- 
ing young  ladies  who  are  so  hard.' 

It  was  impossible  not  to  laugh,  especially 
when  Mr.  Morris  put  on  a  gold  pince-nez  and, 
holding  the  book  of  words  a  long  way  off,  tried 
to  find  out  what  the  story  was. 

'  What's  it  all  about,  now  ?  Don't  under- 
stand German.  Oh,  here  we  are.  Act  I. 
"  They  tremble  and  convidsively  put  their  hands 
to  their  hearts,  then  again  press  them  to  their 
foreheads.  Their  eyes  meet  anew,  sink  in  con- 
fusion, and  once  more  fasten  on  each  other  with 
looks  of  increasing  passion."  Hum!  .  .  . 


124  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

1 "  ISOLDE 

(sinking  on  his  breast), 
Faithlessly  fondest ! 

* "  TRISTAN 

(pressing  her  to  him  with  fire), 
Deathlessly  dearest ! " 

Ah  !  very  unfortunate  now,  as  she's  going 
to  marry  the  other  Johnnie.  Never  have  any 
luck,  these  poor  little  heroines.  Beautiful  high 
C  that !  .  .  .  She's  in  great  form  to-night.' 
But  later  on  Mr.  Morris  was  again  bewildered 
by  the  language  of  the  libretto,  which  he  in- 
sisted on  reading  aloud : 

' "  O  highest,  wholest, 
Fairest,  fiercest, 
Brimmingest  bliss  ! 
Priceless  !  peerless  ! 
Fixed  and  fearless  !     . 
Blind  and  breathless".  .  «  . 

Now,  I  call  that  exaggerated,  don't  you  know. 
Did  you  ever  talk  to  Mrs.  Wynman  like  that 
now,  Wynman  ?  Nobody  ever  says  that  sort 
of  thing  to  me.' 

But  in  spite  of  Mr.  Morris's  objections  to 
the  Wagnerian  methods,   our  evening   at  the 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  125 

opera  ended  amiably  all  round.  Before  we 
separated  that  night  he  had  given  father  a 
commission  for  a  big  canvas. 

'  Samson  and  Delilah '  was  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  the  picture,  for  Mr.  Morris  had  a  taste 
for  the  good  old  themes.  And  yet  when  the 
picture  was  half  finished  he  began  to  see  that 
it  was  rather  out  of  date  for  a  modern  house. 

'  Should  like  you  to  put  Miss  Peggy  in, 
now ! '  said  Mr.  Morris  one  day,  as  we  all  three 
sat  criticising  the  huge  canvas.  '  Nort  suitable 
for  Delilah,  eh  ? '  It  was  one  of  his  peculiarities 
that  he  pronounced  '  not '  and  '  got '  like  '  nort ' 
and  '  gort.'  '  Want  a  more  robust  model  ?  Nort 
at  all.  Just  the  sort  of  little  girl  like  Miss 
Peggy.'  But  father  was  inexorable.  I  had  sat 
to  him  as  a  Bacchante,  as  a  village  maiden,  and 
as  a  nun,  but  for  Delilah  he  would  have  none 
of  me.  Mr.  Morris  was  obviously  disappointed. 

He  used  to  be  always  dropping  in  to  see 
how  '  Samson  and  Delilah '  was  getting  on, 
and  he  not  infrequently  stayed  to  lunch. 
'  Charmin' — hashed  mutton — just  what  I  like. 
Anythin'  does  for  me.  Gort  a  passion  for 
baked  potatoes,  dear,'  declared  Mr.  Morris, 

who  feasted  like  Lucullus  at  home.      It  was 

10 


126  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

another  of  his  peculiarities,  by-the-bye,  that 
he  usually  addressed  the  whole  female  sex  as 
'dear.'  Mr.  Morris  chaffed  everybody,  from 
the  editor  of  his  paper  to  the  cabman  who 
drove  him  to  the  City.  He  even  chaffed 
Christina. 

On  one  celebrated  occasion,  when  Christina 
had  turned  vegetarian,  she  sat  eating  nothing 
but  watercress,  lettuce,  and  endive  all  through 
lunch. 

'  My  heavens ! '  said  Mr.  Morris  at  last, 
adjusting  his  eyeglass,  and  regarding  Christina 
placidly  munching  a  third  plate  of  raw  green 
stuff,  '  is  this  a  beautiful  woman  or  a  ruminatiri 
animal  ? ' 

From  that  day  forward  Christina  ate  fish, 
meat,  and  fowl  like  the  rest  of  the  family. 

'  Samson  and  Delilah '  was  finished  at  last, 
and  to  celebrate  the  hanging  of  the  picture 
there  was  to  be  a  little  supper  in  the  white 
dining-room  in  Piccadilly,  at  which  a  Royal 
personage  was  expected  to  be  present. 

But  Mr.  Morris  was  not  to  eat  his  supper 
with  Royalty  in  Piccadilly  that  night.  On  the 
morning  of  the  party — a  foggy  November  day 
— Mr.  Morris's  valet  drove  up  to  our  door  in  a 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  127 

hansom.  His  white,  twitching  face  told  us  the 
worst.  Albert  Morris  was  dead. 

And  so,  after  all,  his  millions  had  not  been 
able  to  save  him  from  what  he  dreaded — a 
sudden  and  a  comparatively  early  death.  The 
servant's  scared  face  was  painful  to  see  ;  he 
had  been  genuinely  attached  to  Mr.  Morris, 
and  he  had  entered  his  room  that  morning  with 
tea  and  letters  to  find  the  electric  light  still 
burning,  and  the  figure  of  his  master  propped 
up  in  bed  with  a  book  in  the  hand  that  had 
been  cold  for  many  hours.  It  was  a  French 
book,  the  valet  said  ;  '  Fort  comme  la  Mort ' 
he  thought  the  name  was.  Albert  Morris  had 
drawn  his  last  breath  while  reading  his  favourite 
author. 

And  that  was  the  end.  .  .  .  One  had  a 
choky  feeling  in  the  throat  when  one  thought 
of  it.  ...  Of  course,  in  stories  and  plays  it 
is  only  the  death  of  the  young,  the  handsome, 
and  the  virtuous  which  is  meant  to  rouse  our 
deepest  pity.  Yet  in  real  life  it  is  often  the 
figure  of  an  Albert  Morris — stout,  genial, 
worldly,  rolling  in  wealth,  and  terrified  at  death 
— which  most  readily  claims  our  tears.  Of  the 
earth  earthy,  we  can  only  picture  them  in  their 


128  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

clubs  or  at  our  dinner- tables.  In  the  grand 
drama  of  death  it  seems  impossible  that  they 
should  ever  take  a  part — they,  the  heroes  of 
half  a  dozen  farces,  the  authors  of  half  a 
hundred  mots. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  129 


CHAPTER  X 

'  I'M  surprised,  now,  that  you  English  ladies 
don't  come  oftener  on  our  side.  I  should 
surmise  that  young  ladies  have  a  better  time 
in  America  than  anywhere  else  on  this  earth. 
The  deference  paid  to  Woman  in  the  United 
States  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  our 
national  characteristics.  I  tell  you,  you  find  it 
in  every  relation  of  life.  There's  this  Divorce 
"  act "  now  ;  a  man — in  America — will  allow  his 
wife  to  get  a  divorce  from  him  if  they  find  that 
they  can't  agree  ;  he  would  not  think  of  letting 
his  wife  take  the  blame.  I  should  say,  now, 
that  that  sort  of  thing  was  unheard  of  in  this 
country.  Your  men,  now,  I  should  judge, 
would  not  be  apt  to  take  the  blame  on  them- 
selves. I  have  been  much  struck,  though, 
with  the  splendid  physical  appearance  of  your 
young  men.  Why,  in  Rotten  Row  I  have 
seen  more  remarkable-looking  men  in  one 
A  10* 


130 


MY  FLIRTATIONS 


morning's  walk,  than  I  should  be  apt  to  see  in 
a  week  on  Fifth  Avenue  or  Broadway.  Your 
tailors,  now,  they  are  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  your  institutions,  if  one  may  say  so. 
You  English  ladies,  too,  are  just  perfectly 
lovely.  Your  high-bred  repose  is  perfectly 
fascinating  ;  and  you  are,  I  should  judge,  more 
affectionate  than  American  women  ?  I  should 
say,  now,  that  you  had  more  heart  ?  The 
trouble  is  that  our  society  girls  don't  begin  to 
have  any.  Why,  there  was  an  English  noble- 
man, Sir  John  Lacklands,  in  New  York  last 
winter.  That  man  was  over  seventy-two  years 
of  age.  Well,  he  is  about  to  be  married  to 
one  of  the  youngest  buds  of  this  season,  the 
daughter  of  one  of  our  most  prominent  railroad 
kings  Why,  the  night  before  I  sailed  from 
New  York  I  went  to  see  a  girl  in  Madison 
Avenue,  and  there  was  a  handsome  young 
fellow  of  three-and-twenty  there  who  had  been 
calling  every  evening  at  that  house  for  some 
weeks.  When  he  left,  I  thought  I  should  con- 
gratulate her  on  her  engagement.  "  Why," 
said  she,  "  what  queer,  old-fashioned  ideas  you 
do  have.  Well,  I  don't  know  but  what  I'm 
thinking  of  marrying,  but  I  guess  it's  his  grand- 


MY  FLOTATIONS  13! 

father,  the  millionaire,  who's  to  be  the  happy 
man." ' 

Christina  and  I  gasped,  as  Mr.  Elisha  Van 
Schuyler  at  last  paused,  though  apparently 
more  to  point  his  story  than  to  take  breath. 

In  appearance  he  was  tall,  but  not  so  broad- 
shouldered  as  an  Englishman  of  his  height 
would  have  been,  he  had  a  dapper  little 
pointed  beard  and  moustache,  and  keen,  intelli- 
gent eyes.  His  coat  was  made  by  a  tailor  in 
Savile  Row. 

We  had  never  seen  an  American  gentleman. 
Transatlantic  women  we  had  met  by  the  score  ; 
admired  their  gowns,  laughed  at  their  stories, 
and  secretly  envied  their  unfailing  vivacity; 
but  none  of  the  New  Yorkers  and  Philadel- 
phians  that  we  had  known  in  London  had  ever 
appeared  to  have,  or  seem  to  have  wasted  a 
thought  on,  any  male  belongings.  Therefore, 
when  Mr.  Elisha  Van  Schuyler  presented  him- 
self with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  her 
Grace  of  Birmingham  (who  had  known  him 
in  her  early  days  in  America),  it  was  with  a 
feeling  of  keen  curiosity  that  we  undertook  to 
show  him  the  studio  and  its  contents. 

Our  studio  is  one  of  the   '  show '  ones  of 


132  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

London,  and  if  Mr.  Van  Schuyler's  face  fell  a 
little  when  confronted  with  papa's  portraits,  he 
was  lavish  in  his  admiration  of  the  beautiful 
room.  '  We  don't  begin  to  have  anything  like 
this  in  New  York,'  he  said,  giving  a  compre- 
hensive look  round.  '  Our  artists  either  can't 
afford  to  furnish  a  studio  (nobody  buys  Ameri- 
can pictures  on  our  side),  or  else  they  sort  of 
overdo  the  thing.  Too  much  tapestry,  too 
many  suits  of  mail,  too  many  mandolins,  and 
too  many  ivory  crucifixes.  There  was  a  man 
who  studied  in  Paris,  and  thought  he'd  go 
home  and  do  the  "  society  act "  as  well  as  paint 
portraits  of  the  "  four  hundred."  Well,  that 
man  was  as  much  fun  as  a  goat.  He  just  got 
as  thin  as  a  rail  and  as  bald  as  a  coot  trying 
to  work  the  "  society  racket."  I  tell  you,  he  had 
a  rocky  time.  He  took  a  huge  studio  in  one 
of  the  most  fashionable  parts  of  New  York, 
furnished  it  perfeatly  elegantly,  and  began  by 
painting  one  of  our  society  belles — for  nothing. 
Then  he  used  to  lend  his  studio  to  Polish 
pianists  and  Spanish  dancing-girls,  just  to  get 
the  "  four  hundred  "  inside  his  house  ;  and  they 
used  -to  crowd  right  in,  and  drink  his  tea  and 
his  punch,  and  go  right  away  and  get  their 


WE  DON'T   BEGIN  TO  HAVE  ANYTHING  LIKE  THIS   IN   NEW  YORK. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  135 

portraits  painted  by  a  third-rate  Frenchman  who 
had  fixed  up  an  atelier  next  door.  Why,  I  tell 

you,  that  Frenchman '  and  here  Mr.  Van 

Schuyler  was  fairly  launched  on  another  stream 
of  talk,  which  lasted,  without  intermission,  until 
he  rose,  rather  abruptly,  to  go.  First  he  made 
us  a  low  bow,  a  bow  so  deep  that  I  have  only 
seen  it  equalled  by  that  of  a  Russian  attach^,  and 
then  he  reconsidered  the  question  and  shook 
hands  with  us,  one  after  the  other,  very  high 
up  in  the  air.  He  was  evidently  under  the 
impression  that  this  was  the  latest  mode  of 
salutation. 

When  the  heavy  tapestry  curtains  had 
finally  swung  back  behind  him,  Christina  called 
my  attention  to  the  fact  that,  both  together,  we 
had  only  been  allowed  to  put  in  three  sentences, 
so  entirely  had  our  Transatlantic  guest  monopo- 
lised the  conversation.  '  I  thought  they  always 
said  that  American  women  did  all  the  talking,' 
said  Christina  drily;  'but  this  young  man 
seems  to  have  a  fancy  for  monologues.  I 
timed  one  of  his  stories,  that  about  General 
Horace  Porter  and — what's  the  other  man's 
name  ? — Chauncey  Depew,  and  it  lasted  exactly 
seventeen  minutes  by  the  clock. 


136  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

*  Never  mind  that,'  I  retorted, '  this  American 
is  going  to  be  amusing.' 

And  in  truth  he  turned  out  to  be  charm- 
ing. After  a  while,  when  he  took  to  coming 
pretty  often,  even  Christina  did  not  mind  the 
length  of  Mr.  Van  Schuyler's  anecdotes.  He 
had,  as  I  took  occasion  to  point  out  to 
Christina  more  than  once,  that  desirable 
thing  in  man  or  woman,  a  '  twinkling  eye,' 
and  he  had  also  a  pretty  taste  in  flowers 
and  bonbonnieres,  and  a  perfect  mania  for 
giving  theatre  parties,  with  dainty  little 
suppers  afterwards.  And  later  on,  when  we 
knew  him  better,  he  had  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  excellent,  if  slightly  irreverent, 
stories. 

He  had  his  little  peculiarities,  to  be  sure. 
He  was  never  tired  of  asking  questions  about 
the  Royal  Family  and  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  once — one  night  when  we  were  all  dining 
with  him  at  the  Savoy — he  made  us  write  out 
a  list  of  English  duchesses,  to  see  how  many 
there  were. 

1  But  I  don't  know  any,'  I  objected,  *  except 
the  Duchess  of  Birmingham,  and  she's  an 
American.' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  137 

1  Mercy !  We  don't  count  her'  said  Mr. 
Elisha  Van  Schuyler. 

He  was  fond  of  asking  tiresome  questions, 
too,  about  the  birthplaces  of  famous  people 
in  London ;  and  he  never  looked  at  me,  I  am 
convinced,  without  seeing  me  against  a  fancy 
background  of  the  Tower,  Windsor  Castle, 
and  Stratford-on-Avon.  I  sometimes  feel  that 
he  expected  me  to  live  up  to  a  famous  past. 

But  Mr.  Van  Schuyler's  stay  in  London 
was  not  without  its  distractions.  He  wanted 
to  know  everybody,  and  everybody  seemed 
pleased  to  know  him  ;  he  wished  all  his  friends 
to  'have  a  good  time' — at  his  expense.  He 
was  generosity  itself.  One  could  not  express 
the  vaguest  wish  without  its  being  imme- 
diately carried  out.  His  generosity  even  took 
the  form  of  inviting  his  rivals  to  dinner,  and, 
what  astonished  me  even  more,  sending  one 
in  with  them.  There  was  nothing  mean  or 
narrow-minded  about  our  new  American  friend. 
And  yet,  though  expansive  and  voluble,  we 
seemed  to  know  him  no  more  intimately  at 
the  end  of  three  months  than  at  the  end  of 
his  first  call.  Was  there,  under  all  his  gre- 
gariousness,  a  deep-seated  reserve  ?  Christina 


138  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

thought  that,  on  the  whole,  she  preferred 
people  who  talked  less  and  who  said  more. 
He  had,  to  be  sure,  an  enormous  admiration 
for  Englishwomen  —  especially  the  sort  of 
young  woman  who  rides  to  hounds,  sculls  a 
boat,  and  bags  her  own  grouse.  He  con- 
stantly assured  us  that,  if  we  would  '  cross 
the  herring-pond '  and  spend  a  winter  in  New 
York  or  Washington,  we  should  at  once  attain 
the  rank  of  '  raging  belles,'  though  we  as  con- 
stantly disclaimed  all  intention  of  competing 
with  the  home-grown  article  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  But  every  day,  as  July 
verged  on  August,  and  everyone  was  thinking 
of  the  moors,  and  Homburg,  and  Aix,  Mr. 
Van  Schuyler  grew  more  and  more  civil.  He 
looked  unutterable  things.  Hardly  a  day 
passed  without  a  gorgeous  bunch  of  roses 
being  sent.  I  began  to  wonder  what  life  was 
like  in  New  York ;  if  it  was  all  roses,  and 
devotion,  and  boxes  at  the  play  ?  My  family 
began  to  regard  me  with  unwonted  tenderness 
and  consideration,  and  it  was  obvious  that  they 
half  expected  Mr.  Elisha  Van  Schuyler  might 
carry  me  off  by  the  next  ocean  greyhound. 
Qualms  of  conscience — an  unwonted  experi- 


My  FLIRTATIONS  139 

ence  with  me — began  to  assail  me,  and  more 
than  once  I  asked  myself  whether  I  liked  this 
young  man  chiefly  for  himself  or  for  his  dollars, 
when  that  little  dinner  put  an  unexpected  end 
to  my  doubts. 

It  was  at  Hurlingham  that  the  last  act  of 
the  comedy  was  played.  The  polo  ground 
was  thick  with  wide  -  sleeved,  slim  -  looking 
women,  and  with  broad-shouldered  military 
men,  whose  necks  were  bronzed  by  Indian 
suns.  Here  one  caught  the  profile  of  some 
country-bred  girl,  with  neat,  fair  plaits  tucked 
away  under  a  straw  hat,  and  there  a  radiant 
vision  of  dainty  laces  and  a  delicate  rose-pink 
visage  half  hidden  under  a  vast  parasol.  Care- 
fully made-up  old  men  walked  mincingly  along, 
ogling  the  prettiest  faces  as  they  passed,  and 
mentally  comparing  the  beauties  of  1892  with 
those  more  fascinating  young  creatures  of  thirty 
years  ago.  It  was  a  mild,  grey-skied  after- 
noon of  mid- July,  and  the  sound  of  the  Cold- 
stream  Guards'  band  came  softly  over  the 
lime-scented  air.  On  the  lawn  in  front  of  the 
club-house  the  white-jacketed  waiters  ran 
quickly  to  and  fro  with  trays  of  tea  and 

strawberries,  and  the   checkered  light   of  the 
p  11 


140  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

huge  Chinese  umbrellas  over  the  tables  threw 
curious  little  shadows  on  the  faces  of  the  tea- 
drinkers.  All  around,  pretty  women  were 
nodding  and  smiling  at  their  bachelor  friends. 
Over  yonder,  the  new  beauty  was  obviously 
being  made  love  to  by  somebody  else's  hus- 
band ;  while  inside  the  cool,  carpetless  club- 
house could  be  seen  the  profiles  of  an  elderly, 
painted  personage  in  a  muslin  gown  with  pink 
ribbons,  and  of  a  bored,  handsome  young 
man  who  was  endeavouring  to  make  peace 
with  the  irate  lady.  At  the  next  table,  two 
smart  City  men  were  lighting  their  cigarettes 
after  tea. 

Mr.  Van  Schuyler  was  more  than  usually 
confidential  that  afternoon.  He  told  me  how 
he  was  'just  perfectly  fascinated*  with  London 
and  with  London  girls  ;  how  he  should  like  to 
live  here  (with  a  sigh),  and  how,  if  he  couldn't 
do  that,  he  meant  to  come  '  just  all  the  time.' 
He  had  had,  thanks  to  us,  a  perfectly  beautiful 
time.  He  should  never  forget  it. 

Somebody  had  given  a  dinner,  after  the 
polo,  and  now  we  were  sitting  on  the  terrace 
drinking  our  coffee,  listening  to  the  metallic 
music  of  the  Hungarian  band,  and  watching 


My  FLIRTATIONS  141 

the  stars  appear  one  by  one  above  the  fat, 
bronze-coloured  elms.  Mr.  Elisha  Van  Schuy- 
ler  drew  his  chair  a  little  closer  to  mine. 

'  I  wonder  now,  if  you  would  like  Tuxedo  ? 
Like  most  American  things,  it's  on  a  larger 
scale  than  anything  you  have  on  this  side ' 

'  Larger  or  not,'  I  said  hastily,  '  I  shall 
never  see  it.  You  know  I  am  always  sea-sick. 
I  shall  never  cross  the  Atlantic.' 

'  Well,  now,  I  call  that  rough  on  us !  I  had 
just  made  up  my  mind  that  when  we  were 
married ' 

'Married,  Mr.  Van  Schuyler?' 

'Why,  yes.  I  guess'  (now  and  again, 
when  he  forgot  he  was  in  London,  Mr.  Van 
Schuyler  would  let  drop  an  occasional  '  guess ') 
'  Mamie  and  I  must  fix  it  up  soon,  if  we  are 
ever  going  to.  Mamie's  a  society  girl  in 
Buffalo,  and  although  I'm  willing  she  should 
have  a  good  time  as  long  as  ever  she  wants  to, 
still,  I  think  three  years  is  long  enough  for  a 
fellow  to  be  kept  waiting.  Don't  you  agree 
with  me,  Miss  Peggy  ? ' 

For  a  minute  I  was  too  astonished  to  speak. 
1  Y — es,'  I  hastened  to  say.  '  Three  years  is 
rather  a  long  time.  But  then  you've  managed, 


142  My  FLIRTATIONS 

haven't  you,  to  have  ...  a  fairly  good  time — 
yourself  ? ' 

'  Well,  I  should  smile !  I  imagine  Mamie 
would  allow  that  I  had  better  keep  my  hand 
in  all  the  time.  And  when  we  settle  down  in 
New  York  (I've  been  sending  cablegrams 
about  a  house  on  Fifth  Avenue  all  this  week) 
I  hope  you'll  come  over  and  make  us  quite  a 
long  visit.  Why,  you  would  be  just  a  raging, 
tearing  belle.' 

I  smiled,  and  said  I  should  have  to  make 
Mrs.  Van  Schuyler's  acquaintance  over  here  ; 
and  so  we  talked  it  over,  and  I  proffered  my 
congratulations,  while  Mr.  Van  Schuyler  took 
my  hand  and  held  it  very  hard  as  he  informed 
me  that  he  meant  to  settle  down  in  double 
harness  and  be  a  model  husband. 

Next  year  he  brought  his  wife  to  see  us. 
At  first  sight  she  revealed  herself  as  a  restless, 
talkative,  flirtatious  little  person,  who  had,  like 
her  husband,  a  passion  for  having  '  a  good  time.' 
She  had  brought  a  cousin — a  young  man — 
'  along,'  as  she  explained,  so  her  husband 
shouldn't  have  to  go  around  shopping  with  her. 
He  always  got  mad  when  she  went  shopping. 
She  expected  it  was  poky,  anyhow,  going 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  143 

around  all  the  time  with  your  own  wife.  .  .  . 
If  he  didn't  like  the  young  man,  she  didn't  care, 
any  way.  He  was  just  perfectly  sweet.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Van  Schuyler  (she  always  alluded  to  her 
husband  as  Mr.  Van  Schuyler)  was  just  per- 
fectly devoted  to  Miss  Peggy ;  he  had  never 
allowed  anything  to  interfere  with  his  affection 
for  Miss  Peggy.  And  English  young  ladies 
were  perfectly  lovely,  any  way.  Mrs.  Van 
Schuyler  did  not  believe  in  trying  to  make 
one's  husband  domestic.  If  he  didn't  care  for 
domesticity,  neither  did  she.  She  just  despised 
it,  and  meant  to  live  in  a  hotel. 

While  Mrs.  Van  Schuyler  was  there  her 
husband  was  strangely  silent.  But  it  turned 
out,  on  investigation,  that  he  did  not  appear  to 
find  the  bond  of  wedlock  galling.  She  allowed 
him  plenty  of  rope,  and  he  was  always  to  be 
found  straying  about  at  the  very  end  of  the 
tether.  So  far,  I  have  not  heard  of  either  oi  the 

Van  Schuylers  having  applied  for  a  divorce. 

11* 


144  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER  XI 

AFTER  breakfast  there  was  nothing  pleasanter 
one  could  do  than  to  sit  out  in  the  gravelled 
garden  of  the  hotel  under  the  palm-trees,  and, 
unfurling  a  green-lined  umbrella,  to  bask  like 
a  cat  in  the  warmth.  And  it  was  here,  gene- 
rally with  an  offering  of  flowers,  that  M.  Rene 
Levasseur  used  to  join  us,  with  his  English 
sailor  hat,  his  gauzy  Parisian  tie,  and  a  shep- 
herd's plaid  shawl  gracefully  disposed  round 
his  shoulders.  Skirmishing  and  giggling 
heralded  his  approach.  He  was  on  intimate 
terms  with  everybody  in  the  hotel ;  he  had 
confidences  for  the  landlady,  bon-bons  for  the 
children,  and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  special 
greeting  for  the  '  boots.' 

In  appearance  he  was  hardly  a  typical 
Frenchman.  Blond,  thin,  and  pale,  he  had 
only  the  beginnings  of  a  beard,  while  his  slightly 
stooping  shoulders  betrayed  the  habit  of  bend- 


HE   WAS   HARDLY   A   TYPICAL   FRENCHMAN. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  147 

ing  at  an  easel.  For  M.  Rene  was  a  painter, 
one  of  the  new  school  of  vibristes.  He 
did  the  most  extraordinary  little  landscapes, 
all  in  pink,  and  mauve,  and  arsenic-green 
stripes,  which  looked  well  enough  about  ten 
yards  off,  but  which  were  bewildering  enough, 
to  our  British  eyes,  when  inspected  at  close 
quarters.  Other  French  painters,  however, 
were  enthusiastic  over  his  work.  '  Tiens — • 
tres  fort,  ce  gar£on ! '  they  would  say,  gazing 
at  a  mountain  put  in  with  mauve  and  rose- 
coloured  lines  ;  '  beaucoup  de  v'lan  ;  tres- 
amusant.  II  est  dans  le  mouvement,  celui-la  ; 
il  tient  de  Monet.'  Accustomed  to  the  treacly 
sunset  landscape,  as  depicted  annually  on  the 
walls  of  Burlington  House,  we  were  not  a  little 
amazed  at  M.  Rene's  '  vibrations ' — notes  of 
dazzling  sunlight  and  white  open  air.  Like 
most  of  his  painter-compatriots,  he  was  very 
amusing.  For  the  French  artist,  unlike  his 
English  brother,  has  a  number  of  theories, 
which  he  can  usually  express  in  a  more  or  less 
attractive  way.  To  be  sure,  he  is  generally  a 
pessimist ;  but  to  mention  this  is  only  to  say 
that  the  French  artist  is  eminently  modern. 
And  if  M.  Ren6  was  a  pessimist,  he  was  an 


148  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

• 

infinitely  diverting  one.  He  was  one  of  the 
very  few  young  men  of  our  acquaintance  who 
amused  Christina. 

First  we  were  civil  to  him  because  we 
thought  he  was  rather  clever  and  impecunious  ; 
but  we  learnt,  later  on,  that  he  was  rich,  and 
that  the  cheap  sailor  hat  and  faded  shawl  were 
part  of  his  pose. 

'  Frenchmen,  whatever  you  may  say  against 
them,  are  never  snobbish,'  I  announced  one 
day  to  Christina.  '  When  do  you  ever  hear 
them  talk  about  their  money  ?  ' 

'  No,  just  as  in  England  it  is  bad  taste  to 
talk  of  one's  religion.  Money  is  their  religion, 
you  know.' 

It  was  our  first  winter  in  the  South.  The 
spell  of  the  Riviera  was  over  us.  The  lazy 
days  crept  by,  filled  with  the  scent  of  violets, 
the  warmth  of  the  sunshine,  the  magnificent 
panorama  of  the  littoral.  Our  nights  were  de- 
voted to  cotillons,  but  I  never  could  remember 
afterwards  what  we  did  during  those  sunny 
days. 

Our  painter,  who  had  claimed  our  acquaint- 
ance from  having  seen  father's  pictures  in  the 
'  great,  the  unique,  the  epoch-making  Exposition 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  149 

of  1889,'  was  always  turning  up.  Even  before 
the  mid-day  breakfast,  he  would  run  down  to 
the  harbour  to  see  the  English  yachts  come  in 
or  out,  or  stroll  with  us  to  the  flower  market, 
and(  come  back  with  his  arms  full  of  mimosa, 
anemones,  and  violets.  Or  he  would  take  us 
both  off  for  a  day's  painting  in  the  mountains  ; 
at  least,  he  and  Christina  used  to  paint,  and  I 
used  to  lie  on  my  back  and  look  on,  and  eat  the 
sweetmeats  which  he  thoughtfully  provided. 

One  day  M.  Rene  painted  me.  He  did 
me  in  a  scarlet  gown,  with  a  scarlet  parasol,  in 
full  sunlight,  against  the  blue  Mediterranean, 
and  I  remember  he  painted  my  face  in  scarlet 
and  purple  zigzags.  Even  my  worst  enemy 
has  never  accused  me  of  vanity,  but  I  must  say 
I  was  annoyed. 

'  Do  not  be  afraid,  Mademoiselle.  I  shall 
send  it  to  New  York.  You  will  never  see  it 
again.  Those  good  Americans  only  speak  of 
our  school.  Every  millionaire  of  New  York 
desires  a  Claude  Monet,  or,  failing  him,  one  of 
his  disciples,'  said  M.  Ren6  soothingly ;  and, 
to  be  sure,  on  reflection,  it  did  not  matter  much 
if  my  face  appeared  like  a  gaily-coloured  zebra 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 


FLIRTATIONS 

But  it  was  at  night,  when  we  went  to  dance 
at  one  of  the  villas  or  one  of  the  hotels,  that 
M.  Rene  was  in  his  element  Even  your  most 
pessimistic  Frenchman  will  valse — if  you  give 
him  the  chance.  He  danced  madly,  breath- 
lessly, abominably  ;  but,  as  a  leader  of  cotillons, 
our  painter  was  quite  unapproachable.  His 
tact,  his  finesse,  his  gaiety  were  admirable. 
How  easily  we  amused  ourselves  during  those 
winter  nights !  The  drives  back,  after  the  ball, 
along  the  bay,  packed  into  the  small  hotel 
omnibus,  with  our  hands  full  of  toys  and  ribbons 
and  flowers— the  spoils  of  the  evening — while 
a  large  white  moon  lit  up  the  coast,  and  the 
pink  and  yellow  villas  were  hushed  for  the 
night  among  the  orange-trees  and  palms. 
How  pleased  M.  Rend  looked  when  I  brought 
home  a  lapful  of  tinsel  ribbons  and  tea-roses ! 
He  had  begun  to  assume  little  airs  of  semi- 
proprietorship  which  were  amusing ;  I  think 
he  already  suspected  me  of  cherishing  a  hope- 
less passion  for  him. 

'  Tenez,  je  vous  aime  bien,  Mile  Marguerite/ 
said  M.  Rend  one  day ;  '  vous  savez  bien  que 
je  suis  fou  de  vous.  Mais  .  .  .  je  ne  voudrai 
pas  vous  dpouser  .  .  .  mais  non,  mais  non ! ' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  151 

'  Much  obliged  to  you,  but  I'm  sure  I 
don't  want  you  to  do  so !'  I  replied,  with 
some  acerbity.  I  always  answered  him  in 
English.  The  French  tongue  is  not  my  strong 
point,  but  when  I  speak  my  native  language 
to  a  foreigner  I  invariably  shout.  'Without 
being  indiscreet,  M.  Levasseur,  may  I  ask 
why?' 

We  were  climbing,  through  some  orange- 
groves,  up  a  hill,  and  the  glistening  green 
leaves  overhead  were  powdered  with  bloom 
and  heavy  with  fruit.  He  tore  a  spray  of 
orange-blossom  down,  and  stuck  it  gingerly 
through  my  plaits.  '  Tres  jolie,  la  marine,'  he 
said,  laughing  ;  '  mais  tres  difficile  a  amuser — 
O,  mais  bien  difficile.' 

There  was  a  fatuity  about  this  little  scene 
which  made  me  thoughtful — for  a  week.  Not 
that  I  alone  was  suspected  of  inclining  my  eyes 
in  our  painter's  direction.  No  one,  however 
unlikely,  was  safe  in  this  regard,  no  one,  from 
the  stout,  elderly  landlady  to  the  youngest 
school-girl  in  the  hotel.  We  were  one  and  all 
supposed  to  take  a  tender  interest  in  his  pro- 
ceedings. But  I  never  realised  this  quite  until 
the  night  of  the  tableaux  vivants,  from  which 


FLIRTATIONS 

moment  I  fancy  M.  Rene  was  convinced  of  my 
hopeless  attachment. 

He  was  invaluable  in  our  tableaux  vivants. 
We  did  it  all  between  us,  he  and  I,  and  it 
involved  the  sending  of  dozens  of  notes  on 
M.  Rene's  part ;  weird  little  missives,  written 
half  in  French,  half  in  English,  which  were 
sufficiently  bewildering  at  first : — '  Merci,  dear 
friend,  de  votre  amabilitd.  C'est  done  con- 
venu  ?  Vous  me  pretez  une  queue,  et  je  serai 
une  b£te  tout  a  fait  convenable.  On  repete 
aujourd'hui  a  quatre  heures.  II  y  aura  du  th6. 
En  seriez-vous  de  la  petite  fete  ? — Wery  faith- 
fully yours,  RENE  LEVASSEUR.' 

'Wery'  was  nice  enough  as  an  example  of 
*  English  as  she  is  spoke,'  but  M.  Rene's  devo- 
tion was  expressed  in  other  extraordinary 
English  phrases  which  he  had  just  missed 
catching  from  English  ladies  in  pensions  and 
hotels.  Nothing  would  remove  the  impression 
that  '  my  dearling '  was  a  proper  and  ordinary 
way  of  addressing  a  woman. 

Like  most  Frenchmen  he  had  no  self-con- 
sciousness (the  absence  of  this  defect  was  made 
up  for,  I  suppose,  by  exaggerated  personal 
vanity) ;  he  had,  therefore,  no  more  objection  to 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  153 

making  himself  a  false  stomach  with  two  or 
three  sofa-cushions  than  he  had  to  putting  on 
a  cardboard  nose  or  running  about  on  all-fours. 
As  the  '  Beast,'  indeed,  he  was  delightful,  wearing 
my  new  sable  boa  as  a  tail,  and  wooing  '  Beauty,' 
in  the  person  of  our  schoolgirl,  with  quite  irre- 
pressible ardour.  In  our  '  Pierrot'  scenes,  too, 
he  was  charming,  taking  my  infidelities  (as 
Pierrette)  with  the  prettiest  grace  in  the  world. 
The  whole  thing  was  quaint,  artistic,  delightful. 
M.  Rene  was  the  hero  of  the  ball  that  followed. 
We  were  to  leave  the  next  day. 

The  morning  broke  grey  and  stormy,  and 
great  waves  tipped  with  white  were  lashing  the 
pebbles  on  the  beach  as  I  sat  in  the  hotel 
garden,  tired  after  our  late  night.  Christina 
had  insisted  on  remaining  upstairs  to  super- 
intend the  packing. 

Presently  something  dark  fell  in  my  lap. 
It  was  a  bouquet  of  votive  violets,  while 
M.  Rene's  quizzical  face  at  an  open  window 
above  announced  to  me  my  assailant. 

'  Comment,  toute  seule  ? '  In  a  moment  a  leg 
appeared  over  the  balcony,  something  bounded 
out,  and  M.  Rene  was  bowing  low  in  front  of 

me. 

12 


154  Mv  FLIRTATIONS 

1  Pauvre  Mees  Marguerite ! '  he  murmured. 

'Why  "poor"  Miss  Marguerite?'  I  asked 
in  a  high  voice,  so  as  to  make  sure  that  he 
understood. 

'  Vous  vous  en  allez — comme  $a,  en  Angle- 
terre  ?  C'est  si  triste — la-bas.' 

'  Oh  no,  it  isn't.  We  are  going  back  to  the 
London  season,  you  know.  We  manage  to 
amuse  ourselves  over  there,  although  you  can't 
imagine  it,  immersed  as  we  are  in  the  outer 
darkness.' 

And  then  M.  Ren6  told  me  of  his  hopes  of 
a  visit  to  London  some  day,  when  the  stormy 
waters  of  the  Channel  should  have  subsided 
enough  for  him  to  adventure  on  the  wild  and 
desperate  journey.  He  told  me  of  the  expe- 
riences of  a  friend  of  his  in  London,  of  a  fort- 
night spent  at  a  French  hotel  near  Leicester 
Square ;  of  the  hideosities  of  the  English 
Sunday,  of  the  flat-soled  boots  of  ces  dames, 
of  the  equally  unexciting  conversational  efforts 
of  ces  messieurs ;  all  the  prejudices  and  pre- 
conceptions which  the  Parisian  packs  up 
in  his  portmanteau  on  leaving  Paris  and  re- 
tains intact  on  his  return  to  his  beloved 
capital. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  155 

'Ah,  but  London  is  charming  all  the  same,' 
I  objected. 

The  wind  had  dropped,  and  the  sun  was 
already  turning  the  sea -pines  to  a  delicate 
greenish-silver.  The  day — our  final  day — was 
to  be  fine  after  all. 

But  it  was  time  to  go.  We  were  not,  how- 
ever, to  leave  in  the  ordinary  and  conventional 
way,  in  a  hotel  omnibus  and  an  express  train, 
but  a  large  party  of  people  were  to  drive  us  in 
brakes  and  carriages  to  the  Italian  frontier,  and 
we  were  all  to  dine  together  at  Ventimiglia 
before  we  took  the  train  for  Genoa.  M.  Rene 
sat  close  behind  me  in  the  brake,  and  whis- 
pered reassuringly  into  my  ear  as  we  dashed 
along  the  mountain  road  with  the  Mediter- 
ranean spread  out  below  us  and  the  rocky 
heights  to  the  left.  At  the  vine-covered  trat- 
toria, where  we  stopped  to  drink  Chianti  and  to 
rest  the  horses,  it  was  M.  Rene  who  was  so 
anxious  we  should  all  dance  a  farewell  valse  in 
the  dusty  and  deserted  salon,  while  someone 
strummed  a  tune  on  the  jingling,  worn  piano, 
which  only  woke  up  once  a  week,  when  the 
peasants  danced  on  Sundays.  At  Ventimiglia, 
where  we  all  walked  out  to  see  the  view,  our 


156  My  FLIRTATIONS 

painter  grew  sentimental,  and  at  dinner,  at  the 
hotel,  I  think  he  managed  to  shed  a  tear. 

But  everything  comes  to  an  end.  Dinner 
was  over,  and  now  we  were  already  in  the 
railway  carriage,  with  our  friends  crowding 
round  the  open  door.  And  what  a  charming 
leave-taking  it  was!  Everybody  brought  a 
farewell  gift ;  a  bunch  of  roses,  a  basket  of 
peaches,  a  Spanish  fan,  a  china  frog — every 
kind  of  trifle  that  one  can  give — and  take — 
without  being  compromised.  The  engine  was 
snorting,  mother  was  snugly  ensconced,  and 
Christina  was  getting  out  her  favourite  books  ; 
the  guards  had  three  times  announced  the 
imminent  departure  of  the  train,  and  still 
M.  Ren£,  climbing  once  more  into  the  carriage, 
knelt,  in  mock  tragedy,  at  our  feet.  A  horrible 
suspicion  came  over  us  that  he  meant  to  come, 
too.  But  a  final  whistle  sounded.  M.  Ren£ 
rose  to  his  feet,  and,  crushing  my  fingers, 
bent  over  me  as  he  whispered  tenderly,  sooth- 
ingly, reassuringly  the  words  : — 

'  L'avenir  est  aux  audacieux.  .  .  .  Je  vien- 
drai!' 

Needless  to  say,  my  Parisian  admirer  has 
not  yet  braved  the  terrors  of  the  Channel 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  157 

passage  for  my  sake.  Now  and  again  he  sends 
a  '  Figaro  or  a  '  Gaulois '  containing  a  fervid 
article  about  his  pictures,  for  M.  Rene,  it  would 
seem,  is  on  the  way  to  fame ;  and  once  or  twice 
he  has  written  to  say  that  he  intends  to  come 
and  make  serious  studies  of  ces  ttonnants  brouil- 
lards  de  Londres.  But  he  never  comes,  nor 
does  he,  I  shrewdly  suspect,  intend  to.  Paris 
has  swallowed  him  up. 

12* 


158  MY  FLIRTATIONS 


CHAPTER  XII 

DUNCAN  CLIVE'S  Hamlet  had  taken  the 
town.  Christina  roundly  declared  it  was  a 
revolting  exhibition ;  but  I  don't  know  good 
acting  from  bad,  so  this  last  reading  of  the 
great  part  was  good  enough  for  me.  True,  it 
was  a  smug,  sentimental,  South  Kensingtoniari 
Hamlet,  but  I,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the 
public,  became  enthusiastic  over  Mr.  Duncan 
Clive.  We  are  only  human,  and  my  ardour 
was  possibly  not  unconnected  with  the  fact  that 
the  manager  of  the  Proscenium  Theatre  was 
the  fashion.  Fashions  in  art  are  eminently  con- 
tagious. 

He  had  the  look  of  a  Roman  emperor. 
His  large  round  head,  his  square,  clean-shaven 
jaw,  and  his  broad  shoulders  made  him  an 
effective  stage  figure,  though  in  private  life  he 
often  enough  looked  depressed  and  bilious,  and 
affected  a  humble  and  slightly  apologetic  manner-. 
If  you  can  picture  Nero  or  Caligula,  in  a  sublime 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  159 

frock-coat,  sitting  down  meekly  over  the  teacups 
and  talking  of  '  elevating  the  drama '  and  '  im- 
proving the  public  taste,'  you  have  a  vision  of 
Mr.  Duncan  Clive  as  he  used  to  appear  in  our 
drawing-room.  He  was  an  actor-manager,  so 
he  had  to  talk  about  improving  the  public 
taste — and  yet  keep  one  eye  on  the  box  office. 
He  spent  fabulous  sums  on  the  production  of 
his  pieces,  and  all  the  town  would  flock  to  see 
his  real  Empire  furniture  and  his  genuine 
Aubusson  carpets. 

'Whether  he  is  a  great  actor  or  not,'  I 
argued  one  day  with  Christina,  '  at  any  rate 
you  must  admit  that  he  has  done  a  great  deal 
for  the  stage.' 

'  My  dear,  you  mean  for  the  stage-carpenter,' 
replied  my  sister,  in  an  aggravatingly  conclu- 
sive tone  of  voice. 

Ours  was  the  sort  of  house  to  which  every- 
body goes.  From  ambassadors  to  interviewers, 
there  was  hardly  anybody  we  didn't  know,  and 
Christina  and  I  were  told  to  be  civil  to  all  and 
sundry,  but  there  was  no  need  to  admonish  me 
to  be  civil  to  the  new  Hamlet. 

I  was  in  the  studio,  squeezing  out  colours  on 
to  father's  palette,  one  day  when  Mr.  Duncan 


160  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

Clive  was  announced.  There  he  stood  in  the 
flesh,  my  favourite  stage-lover,  looking  very 
blue  about  the  jaw  and  very  dazzling  about 
the  necktie,  and  he  waited  a  second  or  two, 
holding  back  the  heavy  portiere,  just  as  he 
always  did  when  he  wished  to  make  an  effec- 
tive entrance  on  the  stage.  Then  he  stepped 
forward  rapidly,  with  a  brilliant  smile,  shaking 
hands  with  father  and  making  me  a  low  and 
deferential  bow. 

Father  was  to  paint  him  as  Hamlet  for  the 
next  Academy,  and  he  had  chosen  to  be  done, 
not  with  Yorick's  skull  or  in  the  famous  solilo- 
quy, but  in  the  scene  with  Guildenstern,  where 
he  snaps  the  pipe  in  two.  '  Do  you  think  I 
am  easier  to  be  played  on  than  a  pipe  ? '  was 
the  line  to  be  depicted ;  and  to  be  sure,  Duncan 
Clive  made  an  imposing  figure  enough  in  his 
sombre  doublet,  standing  with  his  chin  a  little 
forward,  and  his  eyes  turned  suspiciously  to- 
wards the  spectator.  It  was  characteristic  of 
the  man  to  have  chosen  that  particular  episode, 
that  especial  pose,  for  he  was  above  all  things 
undecided  and  distrustful.  He  wanted  to  be '  in 
the  movement,'  but  he  wished  to  be  well  with 
the  British  public.  He  would  like  to  have 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  161 

mounted  Hedda  Gabler,  had  there  been  a 
part  big  enough  for  him  to  play ;  he  was 
capable  of  producing  Maeterlinck,  but  for  his 
doubts  about  filling  the  stalls.  To  see  him 
humbly  asking  the  opinion  of  the  critics  at  one 
of  his  '  first  night '  suppers  on  the  stage  of  the 
Proscenium  Theatre  was  a  curious  and  instruc- 
tive spectacle. 

He  asked  everybody's  advice — that  was  one 
of  his  chief  attractions  in  the  eyes  of  women — 
and  he  even  asked  mine. 

Mr.  Duncan  Clive  had  beautiful,  suggestive 
hands,  which  he  used  a  good  deal  when  he 
talked,  and  a  wandering,  shifty  eye,  which 
travelled  all  round  the  room  even  when  he 
bent  towards  you  in  one  of  his  many  confi- 
dences. He  had  interminable  confidences  to 
make.  He  liked  to  talk  about  his  early  life ; 
only,  as  his  imagination  was  vivid,  and  his 
memory  defective,  his  early  life  was  apt  to 
be  coloured  by  the  mood  of  the  moment. 
On  dreary,  dark  November  days,  when  the 
trees  outside  seemed  to  ooze  grime  and  soot, 
he  would  tell  you,  in  thrilling  tones,  that  he 
began  life  barefoot,  selling  newspapers  in  the 
streets  or  calling  cabs  at  the  theatre  doors  ; 


1 62  My  FLIRTATIONS 

and  how,  one  gruesome  night,  when  he  was 
shivering  in  the  slush,  he  had  made  a  vow  that 
he  would  produce  Shakspearian  plays  at  a 
London  theatre  before  he  was  thirty  years  of 
age.  Other  days,  when  the  sun  shone  and 
the  wind  rioted  out  of  doors,  he  would  recall  a 
rose-shaded  drawing-room  window  giving  on  a 
blue  sea,  and  a  gentle-voiced  mother  who  read 
Browning  to  him  as  he  sat  on  soft  cushions  at 
her  feet.  ...  No,  certainly  the  accounts  of 
Mr.  Duncan  dive's  early  training  did  not,  as 
his  stage-carpenter  would  have  expressed  it, 
'join ' ;  but  I  am  firmly  convinced  that,  while  he 
was  talking  to  you,  while  his  deep-set,  hungry 
grey  eyes  sought  inspiration  now  in  yours, 
and  now  in  the  fairyland  inside  the  fire,  he 
believed  for  the  moment  what  he  was  saying. 
Most  women  liked  to  listen  to  Duncan  Clive's 
confidences,  especially  as  Mrs.  Duncan  Clive 
did  not  usually  accompany  him  when  he  paid 
afternoon  calls.  He  had  married  the  '  walking 
lady '  of  a  travelling  company  some  years  ago, 
but  this  fact  by  no  means  interfered  with  his 
success  with  the  sex.  Who  cares  whether 
Orlando,  Charles  Surface,  or  young  Mirabel 
has  a  wife  in  Bayswater  or  a  troop  of  brats  in 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  163 

Bedford  Park?  Not  even  the  most  romantic 
schoolgirl  cares.  Young  Mirabel  carries  the 
glamour  of  the  footlights  with  him  wherever 
he  goes. 

But  this  glamour,  to  be  sure,  rather  inter- 
feres with  the  due  enjoyment  of  one's  idol,  who 
is  apt  to  be  surrounded  by  admiring  devotees. 
Does  Orlando — in  white  gardenia  and  patent- 
leather  boots — but  offer  you  his  arm  to  go  down 
to  supper,  and  you  are  pursued  by  a  crowd  of 
admiring  ladies  who  hope  to  snatch  him  from 
you.  You  are  permitted  to  have  neither  your 
cavalier  nor  your  supper.  You  gaze  wistfully 
at  the  salads  and  aspics,  while  an  elderly  lady 
buttonholes  Orlando,  reminding  him  archly 
that  they  met,  six  years  ago,  in  a  railway 
carriage  in  Switzerland,  and  proceeds  on  the 
strength  of  this  acquaintanceship  to  introduce 
to  him  her  three  nieces  from  Huddersfield, 
who  are  so  devoted  to  dear  Mr.  Clive's  acting. 
Lady  Susan  takes  him  by  the  arm  into  a  distant 
corner,  from  whence  he  is  presently  dug  out 
by  the  Duchess  of  Birmingham,  who  is  'just 
dying  to  present  him '  to  Miss  Van  Hoyt.  The 
successful  actor-manager  is  always  engulfed  in 
a  sea  of  petticoats. 


164  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

But  all  this  I  could  have  borne  if  it  had 
not  been  for  Lalage  Leigh.  She  was  the  last 
straw.  I  could  have  forgiven  him  his  wife — 
she  didn't  seem  to  count — and  I  could  have 
forgiven  him  Miss  Montmorency,  the  leading 
lady,  for  I  suspected  him  of  being  jealous  of 
her  success  with  the  dress-circle  ;  but  for 
Miss  Lalage  Leigh,  who  played  the  pert 
chambermaids  in  comedy,  and  who  undertook 
the  '  singing  fairies  '  in  Shakspearian  produc- 
tions, for  her  I  had  no  toleration. 

We  had  just  had  a  card  for  a  supper  party 
on  the  stage  of  the  Proscenium  Theatre,  and 
the  matter  was  being  discussed. 

'  In  my  young  days,'  said  mother  doubt- 
fully, '  girls  wouldn't  have  been  taken  to  supper 
parties  behind  the  scenes.' 

'  They're  tremendously  good  fun,'  said 
Lady  Susan,  who  was  paying  one  of  her 
seven-minutes'  visits ;  '  and  quite  good  form, 
you  know,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  Lady 
Rougemont  never  misses  one  of  Duncan's 
parties,  and,  what's  more,  she  brings  her 
daughter.  So  do  Mrs.  Stanley  Goring,  and 
most  of  that  lot.  You  won't  meet  any  actresses 
there,  my  dear  lady,  I  can  tell  you.' 


My  FLIRTATIONS  165 

'  We  might  as  well  go  to  a  crush  in  May- 
fair,  then/  said  Christina. 

'  Oh,  it's  not  as  bad  as  all  that/  replied 
Lady  Susan.  '  What  I  meant  to  say  was,  that 
Miss  Leigh  is  the  only  actress  who  ever  appears 
at  Duncan's  suppers,  and  she  is  perfectly  good 
form,  you  know.  Her  father  was  a  dean/ 

'  They  always  are/  said  Christina ;  but  Lady 
Susan  pretended  not  to  hear. 

At  half-past  eleven  on  the  night  in  ques- 
tion we  drove  up  to  the  Proscenium  just  as 
the  audience  was  streaming  out.  It  was  the 
hundredth  night  of  a  piece  in  three  acts,  called 
Hypocrisy,  which  had  drawn  the  town  for 
some  three  months.  Going  down  the  soft- 
carpeted  staircase,  lighted  by  pink-shaded 
lamps,  and  lined  with  mirrors  and  laurel 
wreaths  culled  by  Duncan  Clive  on  his  last 
American  tour,  we  passed  the  entrance  to 
the  stalls,  the  open  door  revealing  a  now  empty 
house  with  rows  of  pale  pink-and-white  chairs, 
and  then,  mounting  a  step  or  two,  turned 
sharply  to  the  right,  where  a  narrow  door  gave 
on  to  the  '  wings/  The  stage  was  '  set '  with 
the  last  act  of  Hypocrisy,  a  scene  which 

depicted  the  precincts  of  the  '  Camellia  Club/ 
G      k  13 


1 66  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

in  which  a  masked  ball  is  supposed  to  take 
place.  Duncan  Clive  had  not  had  time  to 
change  his  dress,  and  he  now  stood  at  the 
door,  with  brown  grease-paint  on  his  cheek 
and  blue  pencil  lines  round  his  eyes,  smiling 
and  welcoming  his  guests. 

One  or  two  modish  women,  notorious  for 
their  Bohemian  tastes,  had  brought  their 
young  daughters,  who,  surprised,  delighted, 
and  a  little  bit  frightened  at  the  novel  scene 
in  which  they  found  themselves,  whispered 
together  in  corners,  all  a-flutter  with  excitement 
and  curiosity.  The  critics,  imperturbable  as 
usual,  preserved  a  mask-like  expression  of 
countenance  while  they  listened  to  the  con- 
fidences of  one  or  two  leading  actors  on  the 
vexed  subject  of  their  parts  ;  and  a  phalanx 
of  men  about  town,  a  trifle  bald  about  the 
temples,  a  little  weary  about  the  eyes,  gradually 
gathered  on  the  stage.  All  these  exquisitely- 
dressed  individuals  addressed  the  actor-manager 
as  '  Duncan,'  pressed  the  hand,  while  they 
whispered  a  compliment  into  the  ear,  of  Miss 
Lalage  Leigh,  and  then  distributed  themselves 
among  the  society  dames  who  graced  the  scene 
with  their  presence.  Meanwhile,  the  heat  was 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  167 

stifling,  and  the  footlights  below,  with  the 
electric  lights  in  the  '  flies,'  cast  an  unbecoming 
radiance  on  many  a  dyed  head  and  wrinkled 
visage.  In  the  distance  a  middle-aged  and 
faded  woman,  covered  in  diamonds,  had  en- 
gaged Mr.  Clive  in  close  confabulation. 

'  That's  Mrs.  Stanley  Goring.  Good  family, 
rich,  nice  husband,  but  goes  in  for  the  stage, 
don't  you  know,'  whispered  Lady  Susan  ;  '  she's 
never  happy  unless  she's  got  Duncan  to  lunch 
or  supper.' 

A  buffet  had  been  hastily  erected  by  a 
dozen  men  in  theatrical  livery,  and  here  Cabinet 
Ministers,  fashionable  doctors,  blond  Jews, 
white-headed  generals,  eminent  tragedians,  and 
the  '  press '  scrambled  for  champagne  bottles, 
sandwiches,  and  cigars.  A  stout,  red-faced 
man,  who  looked  like  a  navvy  in  evening  dress, 
was  surrounded  by  a  little  court,  all  anxious  to 
hear  what  he  said.  '  That  is  Brown,  the  Stock 
Exchange  speculator,'  continued  Lady  Susan ; 
'  he  makes  "  corners  "  in  things,  and  people  want 
to  know  which  way  the  wind's  goingTto  blow. 
I'm  just  going  to  make  love  to  him  myself;  I 
want  a  straight  tip  about  Lake  Shores.  There's 
Percy  Whitemore,  the  young  man  from  the 


1 68  Mv  FLIRTATIONS 

Thalia.  Never  mention  the  stage  if  you  talk  to 
him,  my  dear.  Always  discuss  horses  ;  he  likes 
to  be  taken  for  a  cavalry  man.' 

Meanwhile  Mrs.  Duncan  Clive,  in  a  drab 
silk  gown,  hovered  vaguely,  with  an  apologetic 
smile,  in  the  background,  and  a  gallant  old 
general,  who  was  devoted  to  the  stage,  surprised 
her  very  much  by  detaining  her  in  conversation. 
Miss  Montmorency,  who,  it  was  supposed,  had 
not  only  a  '  past '  but  a  '  present,'  had  swept 
out,  smothered  in  a  fur  pelisse  and  point  lace, 
directly  the  play  was  over.  As  Lady  Susan 
had  predicted,  Miss  Lalage  Leigh  was  the  only 
actress  there. 

For  the  daughter  of  an  eminent  ecclesiastic, 
I  must  say  that  Miss  Leigh  displayed  a  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  the  ways  of  an  effete 
and  over-civilised  world.  She  was  a  very 
pretty  woman — even  with  that  flaunting  dab 
of  rouge  on  each  cheek  and  those  deep-blue 
smudges  round  her  eyes  ;  even  with  that  fixed, 
conventional  smile  and  that  languorous  profes- 
sional glance.  Already  a  little  circle  of  men 
surrounded  her,  so  that  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  approach,  but  it  was  to  Mr.  Brown,  the 
Stock  Exchange  magnate,  that  she  seemed  to 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  169 

have  most  to  say.  One  heard  her  enquiring 
feverishly  about  '  Brighton  A's,'  and  expressing 
doubts  about  the  future  of  Grand  Trunks.  She 
wished  to  be  well,  too,  with  Mrs.  Stanley 
Goring,  and  detained  that  lady's  hand  in  her 
own  while  she  shot  several  killing  glances  over 
her  shoulder  at  the  critic  of '  The  Daily  Tele- 
phone.' Mr.  Duncan  Clive  had  pressed  my 
hand  and  murmured  something  pretty  when  I 
arrived,  but  he  had  not  yet  found  time  to  come 
and  speak  to  me. 

'  I  do  think  this  sort  of  thing  is  over- 
rated, don't  you  ? '  I  whispered  to  Christina. 
They  were  bringing  on  a  fresh  supply  of  cham- 
pagne now,  and  the  men  were  beginning  to 
smoke  and  tell  stories  ;  the  smart  women  were 
slipping  out  with  their  young  daughters  through 
the  flapping  canvas  doors.  Father  thought  it 
was  time  to  go,  and  so  did  I. 

Picking  up  our  skirts,  we  stepped  cautiously 
along  the  dusty  world  behind  the  scenes,  thread- 
ing our  way  through  virgin  forests,  dungeon 
walls,  and  flowering  June  meadows  to  the  stage 
door.  It  was  pitch  dark,  but  we  could  see  out- 
side stood  a  neat  brougham  and  a  man's  back. 

The  back,  as  we  emerged  into  the  street, 

13* 


170  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

turned  out  to  be  that  of  Mr.  Duncan  Clive. 
With  the  grease-paint  still  on  his  lips,  my  idol 
was  imprinting  a  farewell  salute  on  the  bismuth- 
whitened  arm  of  Miss  Lalage  Leigh,  who 
laughed  as  she  slammed  the  carriage-door. 

It  was  an  evidently  not  unrehearsed  stage 
idyl. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  171 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1  CHRISTINA,'  I  said  thoughtfully  one  day  when 
we  were  alone,  '  you  are  a  young  woman  of 
sense  and  observation.  Did  it  not  occur  to 
you,  when  Mr.  John  Ford  dined  here  last  night, 
that  he  had  the  cachet,  the  unmistakable  appear- 
ance of  a  husband^ 

'What  do  you  mean,  Peggy?  What 
ridiculous  notions  you  always  have.  Why, 
everybody  knows  that  John  Ford  is  not,  and 
has  never  been,  married.' 

'  Oh,  that's  nothing,'  I  retorted  ;  '  I  tell  you 
he  was  born  to  be  henpecked,  and  to  have  a 
carriage  with  fat  horses,  and  never  drive  in  it, 
and  to  pay  long,  expensive  milliners'  bills.  The 
man  looks  like  a  husband.  Some  men  don't, 
and  never  will ;  let  them  marry  three  times, 
and  they  never  look  as  he  looks.' 

'  Well,  he  hasn't  shown  any  indecent  haste 
about  taking  a  wife,'  said  Christina.  '  He 
must  be  every  day  of  fifty.' 


172  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

'  No,'  I  said,  meditatively,  '  he  is  forty-six — 
mettons  forty-six.  He  likes  French  cooking 
and  Italian  operas  (dear  old  fossils  like  the 
Trovatore  and  the  Traviata),  he  is  slightly 
rotund,  he  will  give  his  wife  a  great  many 
diamonds,  and  he  will  probably  want  to  live  in 
Prince's  Gate.  Now,  if  I  were  to  marry  a 
stockbroker,  I  would  never  wear  diamonds.  It 
is  so  like  the  City  to  wear  diamonds.  As  a 
mere  matter  of  taste,  I  should  have  nothing  but 
sapphires  and  pearls.  .  .  .  And  I  should  draw 
the  line  at  Prince's  Gate.' 

'  As  you  have  only  seen  the  man  twice  in 
your  whole  existence,  I  don't  think  you  need 
disturb  yourself  about  the  locality  you  will 
inhabit  with  him — -just  yet.' 

1  Christina,  don't  interrupt  my  day-dream. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  should  insist  on  Mayfair. 
Not  Charles  Street,  it's  too  gloomy ;  nor  South 
Audley  Street,  it's  too  noisy ;  but,  say,  Park 
Street,  or  one  of  those  cosy  little  cross  streets — 
a  red  house  with  a  white  door  and  copper 
fixings.' 

4  Brass  would  be  more  appropriate  for  you, 
my  dear  girl,'  said  Christina,  sententiously ;  and 
then  the  thing  slipped  from  my  memory,  as  the 


HE  WAS   NOT  QUITE   UGLY. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  175 

butler  brought  up  a  bunch  of  orchids  from 
Mr.  Van  Schuyler  and  a  letter  containing  an 
invitation  to  dinner  with  Mr.  Julian  Clancy. 

John  Ford,  the  well-known  stockbroker, 
had  made  his  first  appearance  in  our  house 
about  a  fortnight  before.  He  had  been 
brought  to  the  studio  by  a  pretty,  showy 
Jewess,  who  was  a  great  admirer  of  father's, 
and  who  liked  to  run  in  and  out  at  all  hours 
and  bring  whom  she  liked.  He  was  tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  and  clean-shaven,  and  had  bright 
blue  eyes  set  in  a  square  face — a  face  which 
was  red  all  over.  He  was  not  quite  ugly,  but 
his  manners  were  odd.  He  was  very  silent. 
If  he  did  speak,  it  was  principally  of  '  huntin' ' 
and  '  shootin' ' ;  but  when  he  left  the  house  he 
was  the  possessor  of  father's  new  Academy 
picture,  for  which  he  had  offered — in  an  off- 
hand way,  in  a  distant  corner — the  sum  of 
fifteen  hundred  pounds. 

The  next  time  we  saw  him  it  was  at  dinner, 
at  one  of  our  big  dinners.  It  was  one  of  those 
nights  when  I  am  simple  and  natural,  and  my 
frock  happened  to  be  one  of  those  white,  soft, 
fluffy  things,  which  cost  a  small  fortune  and 
look  so  inexpensive. 


176  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

At  first  the  conversation  did  not  flourish, 
but  Mr.  John  Ford  looked  furtively  and  ap- 
provingly out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  as  he  ate 
his  soup.  '  Nice  little  frock,'  he  said  at  last. 
'  Like  to  see  little  girls  in  white.  Ought 
always  to  dress  in  white.'  And  this  was  the 
first  and  last  occasion  on  which  Mr.  John  Ford 
has  ever  paid  me  a  compliment.  Talking,  as  I 
have  said,  was  somewhat  hard  work,  but  before 
the  dinner  was  over  he  had  told  me  most  of 
his  tastes  and  predilections.  In  a  world  where 
we  change  our  idols  every  six  months,  it  was 
refreshing  to  find  anyone  with  simple,  old- 
fashioned  tastes — a  liking  for  pictures  with 
sunset  skies  and  waxen-faced  maidens,  for  love 
stories  which  end  happily,  and  for  oleaginous 
Italian  melodies.  These  were  the  things  in 
fashion  in  Mr.  John  Ford's  heyday  of  youth, 
and  they  suggested  a  capacity  for  fidelity  which 
was  encouraging.  And  such  is  the  adaptability 
of  woman  and  the  egoism  of  man  that  before 
we  left  the  dinner- table  Mr.  Ford  was  convinced 
that  I  cared  for  these  things  also.  But  it  was 
not  of  Academy  pictures  and  three-volume 
novels  that  I  wished  to  talk  with  Mr.  John 
Ford.  '  Contangos,'  '  debentures,'  '  bears,'  and 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  177 

'bulls'  have  always  been  words  of  strange 
fascination  for  me,  probably  because  I  am 
totally  ignorant  of  everything  that  goes  on  in 
the  City.  It  came  over  me  like  madness  that 
I  wanted  to  have  a  little  gamble,  and  Mr.  John 
Ford  offered  to  give  me  a  '  straight  tip,'  as  he 
called  it,  about  Patagonians.  And  I,  who 
never  possessed  more  than  I/.  los.  altogether 
during  my  whole  life,  felt  quite  dissipated  and 
worldly  and  reckless  as  we  discussed  the  '  little 
flutter'  which  I  was  to  undertake.  There  is 
hardly  anything  so  infectious  as  the  disease  of 
gambling. 

For  the  rest  of  the  evening  Mr.  John  Ford 
did  not  come  near  me,  but  Christina  admitted 
afterwards  that  he  was  watching  me  all  the 
time.  And  when  he  left  I  was  told  that  my 
financial  affairs  were  to  be  seen  to  at  once. 
How  excited,  how  dissipated  I  felt ! 

During  the  next  few  days  I  received  several 
business- looking  blue  envelopes,  in  Mr.  John 
Ford's  handwriting,  in  which  I  was  informed 
that  Patagonians  were  'dull,'  and  afterwards 
that  there  was  a  '  boom '  in  the  same  financial 
commodity,  and  then  again  that  a  fall  was 
expected  soon,  to  be  followed  by  a  rise — all  of 


178  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

which  was  Greek  to  me,   but  which  sounded 
very  reckless. 

But  one  day,  a  week  later,  I  had  a  shock 
which  will  always  be  a  date  in  my  history. 
Christina  and  I  were  sitting  alone  over  the  tea- 
cups. A  blue  business-looking  envelope  was 
once  more  served  up  on  a  silver  tray.  I  began 
to  feel  like  a  Rothschild  or  a  Baring. 

'What's  this?'  I  muttered,  as  I  began  to 
seize  the  purport  of  the  few  neatly-written  lines 
which  meandered  over  a  large  page.  '  He's 
bought  me  five  shares  in  Patagonians  at  io/. 
each.  I've  got  to  pay  5o/.  during  the  next 
fortnight !  Great  heavens  ! '  I  gasped.  '  Why, 
I  haven't  got  a  penny  in  the  world!  I  was 
only  joking ' 

'  An  odd  sort  of  joke,  my  dear  child,'  said 
Christina  drily.  '  Couldn't  you  have  remem- 
bered that  rather  important  fact  before  ? ' 

1  Oh,  I  can't  pay  it !  What's  to  be  done  ? 
Father  must  be  told,  and — and — I  shall  never 
dare  to  look  him  in  the  face  again ! ' 

<  Who— father?' 

1  N — no.  Mr.  Ford.  And  I  like  him  so 
much,  with  his  little  blue  eyes,  and  his  face 
which  is  red  all  over.' 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  179 

'  Wire  to  him  to  come.     Explain  it  nicely, 
said  Christina,  with  what  I  thought  then  was  a 
devilish  calm,  as  she  produced  some  telegraph- 
forms,  pushed  the  ink  and  pen  towards  me,  and 
rang  the  bell  for  the  man. 

In  less  than  an  hour  John  Ford  was  ushered 
into  the  room.  Regardless  of  appearances,  I 
had  had  a  thoroughly  feminine  'cry,'  and  was 
now  huddled  up  on  the  sofa,  with  reddened 
eyelids  and  roughened  hair — a  dismal-looking 
hostess  to  receive  afternoon  callers.  He  came 
in,  shut  the  door,  and  sat  down,  gazing  at  me 
in  astonished  silence. 

'What's  the  matter,  Miss  Wynman?'  he 
said  at  last.  '  Been  sending  some  poor  devil 
about  his  business,  and  regretted  it  already, 
eh?' 

'  No,  no,  I  never  send  anybody  about  their 
business — I — I — hate  business  any  way.  And, 
oh !  why  did  you  buy  all  those  shares  ? ' 

1  All  those  shares  ?  Why,  I  only  got  you 
5<D/.  worth !  I've  just  bought  6,ooo/.  worth 
myself.' 

'  But  I  haven't  got  it,  and  I  can't  get  it ! 
I've  counted  my  money  carefully,  and  I  find  I 
possess  exactly  i/.  5$.  *]\d! 

14 


i8o  Mv  FLIRTATIONS 

John  Ford  laughed.  'Well,  I  think  I  can 
manage  to  get  rid  of  'em  for  you.  In  fact,  I 
know  a  chap  who  wants  five  more.' 

To  anyone  not  blinded  by  financial  terrors 
the  little  subterfuge  must  have  been  palpable. 
As  it  was,  I  never  saw  it  till  long  afterwards. 

1  Do  you  really  know  of  someone  who  wants 
them  ?  I  think  you  are  an  angel ! '  I  said 
fervently. 

John  Ford  blushed  redder  than  ever,  and 
just  for  a  minute  there  was  an  embarrassing 
silence.  We  did  not  mention  Patagonians 
again,  and  yet  he  stayed  quite  a  long  time  that 
afternoon.  At  parting  we  looked  straight  at 
each  other,  and  I  knew  from  that  minute  for- 
ward we  should  be  firm  allies.  There  has 
never  been  a  moment's  doubt,  from  that  day, 
that  we  should  get  on. 

.  .  •  •  • 

Six  months  have  gone  by  since  that  day, 
and  lots  of  things  have  happened.  Everyone 
in  the  house  is  very  nice  to  me  just  now. 
Father  calls  me  every  minute  into  the  studio  to 
ask  my  advice.  Mother — dear  mother ! — looks 
at  me  solicitously,  and  follows  me  about  the 
house  with  a  biscuit  and  a  glass  of  port  wine. 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  181 

Christina  slips  out  of  the  room  when  the  door- 
bell rings.  Nobody  contradicts  me.  It  reminds 
me  of  once,  long  ago,  when  I  was  ill. 

And  to  be  sure  I  am  tired,  very  tired.  Such 
quantities  of  gushing  notes  arrive  by  every  post, 
which  all  require  an  enthusiastic  answer,  and 
large  brown-paper  parcels,  with  many  wrappings, 
which  have  to  be  undone.  I  might  be  qualify- 
ing for  the  treadmill,  I  have  tramped  so  often 
up  the  bare  staircases  of  empty  houses,  where 
elderly  ladies,  smelling  of  gin-and-water,  implore 
me  to  convince  myself  how  excellent  are  the 
dustbins,  and  what  convenient  linen-cupboards 
there  are  next  to  the  garrets.  I  bring  home 
racking  headaches  from  emporiums  in  the 
Tottenham  Court  Road,  whence  I  emerge 
having  ordered  Louis  XVI.  clocks  for  all  the 
servants'  bedrooms,  and  the  particular  shade  of 
blue  which  I  detest  for  the  dining-room  chairs. 
Other  days,  it  is  true,  I  slink  out  of  the  shop 
with  the  excuse  that  the  drawing-room  carpet 
which  I  have  been  choosing  for  the  last  two 
hours  is  for  a  friend,  and  that  nothing  can 
be  decided  without  consulting  her  ;  but  this 
transparent  fabrication  is  invariably  received 
with  looks  of  withering  scorn  by  the  shopman 


1 82  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

in  attendance.  I  am  getting  accustomed  to 
this,  if  not  to  the  ineffable  Young  Person  in 
black  silk  who  presides  at  Mme  Virginie's, 
and  who  always  leaves  me,  after  one  of  our 
lengthened  and  heating  interviews,  with  the 
pleasing  impression  that  I  am  undersized,  hope- 
lessly plain,  and  dressed  in  shocking  taste.  Her 
piercing  black  eyes  look  me  through  ;  they  dis- 
cover the  weak  points  in  the  cut  of  my  nether- 
most petticoat,  and  I  dare  swear,  if  the  truth  be 
told,  that  she  is  perfectly  aware  that  I  have  a 
small  hole  in  the  heel  of  my  stocking. 

But  the  process  of  gentle,  low-voiced  bullying 
which  goes  on  at  the  milliner's  only  leaves  one 
more  obstinate,  and  I  think  I  prefer  my  sworn 
enemy  the  ineffable  Young  Person  to  that  other 
imperious  Hebe  at  the  hat-shop,  who  looks 
aggravatingly  pretty  in  every  shape,  however 
eccentric,  and  who  is  of  opinion  that  '  Madam 
cannot  do  better'  than  take  a  straw  saucer 
trimmed  with  stuffed  birds  and  strawberries, 
seeing  that  Mrs.  Langtry  has  definitely  made  it 
the  mode.  There  are  those  nervous  interviews, 
too,  with  grinning,  sporting-looking  attorneys  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  when  perfectly  incompre- 
hensible documents  without  stops  are  read  out 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  183 

to  me,  and  I  finally  put  my  signature  on  a 
parchment,  which  makes  one  feel  for  all  the 
world  as  if  one  were  signing  a  death-warrant. 
There  are  the  relations,  too,  unknown  aunts 
and  cousins  from  the  provinces  and  the  suburbs, 
who  suddenly  appear,  asking  one  disagreeable 
questions  about  one's  age,  and  who  generally 
sigh,  and  'hope  it  will  all  be  for  the  best.' 
Then  there  is  the  advice,  the  reams  of  good 
advice,  which  they  and  my  other  friends  shower 
upon  me. 

I  am  assured — what  I  can  well  believe — 
that  it  is  the  first  year  which  is  so  trying. 
Some  would  have  me  change  the  savouries  at 
dinner  constantly,  others  insist  that  I  must  begin 
with  morning  prayers,  while  another  division 
conjure  me  not  to  allow  smoking  in  the  dining- 
room.  I  am  implored  not  to  object  to  clubs,  am 
warned  about  pretty  parlour-maids,  am  told  not 
to  be  too  credulous,  and  am  supplicated  not  to 
show  signs  of  jealousy,  as  being  quite  out  of  date. 
A  few  pray  me  to  be  tolerant  of  old  friends, 
race-meetings,  and  cigarettes ;  while  many  more 
urge  me  to  keep  an  observant  eye  on  sisters-in- 
law,  cheque-books,  and  bills.  There  is  all  this, 
and,  as  a  final  blow,  there  is  the  mackerel-kettle ! 

I  14* 


184  MY  FLIRTATIONS 

I  think,  on  the  whole,  the  mackerel-kettle 
has  given  me  more  weary  days  and  sleepless 
nights  than  any  other  article  I  have  had  to  pro- 
cure. In  every  book  on  Furnishing  we  find 
the  mackerel-kettle  placed  foremost  in  the  list 
of  indispensable  things ;  in  no  illustrated  cata- 
logue of  ironmongery  is  a  tempting  little 
wood-cut  of  a  mackerel-kettle  omitted  ;  and  yet 
in  the  flesh,  or  rather  in  the  metal,  the  mackerel- 
kettle  for  ever  eludes  us.  Fabulous  sums  are 
expended  in  hansom  cabs,  scouring  the  Totten- 
ham Court  Road  in  pursuit  of  this  phantom 
article  of  hardware,  and  I  begin  to  think  that 
my  chances  of  happiness  may  be  seriously 
compromised.  .  .  . 

But  time  flies  by.  The  day  is  very  near, 
now.  One  foggy  winter  afternoon  I  toil  upstairs 
to  Christina's  room,  dragging  after  me,  with  the 
help  of  the  maid,  a  long,  brown,  wooden  box. 

1  What  do  you  think  has  come  ? '  I  demand 
breathlessly,  bursting  into  the  room  where 
Christina  is  trying  to  read  an  article  on  the 
'  Under-payment  of  Feminine  Labour'  in  one 
of  the  reviews.  '  Put  it  down,  Sarah.  Un- 
buckle the  strap,  quick ! ' 

Womanlike,    my   sister    throws    down  the 


MY  FLIRTATIONS  185 

'  Twentieth  Century,'  and  we  bend  curiously 
over  the  box  as  the  maid  lifts  gingerly  out  a 
garment  of  shimmering  white  and  silver  from 
under  a  layer  of  tulle. 

Symbols  of  the  Eternal  Feminine,  those 
lengths  of  glittering  satin  flaunt  themselves 
over  the  sofa  and  along  the  floor,  lighting  up 
the  dim  little  room  with  their  sumptuous  white- 
ness, while,  like  a  June  cloud,  the  foam  of  tulle 
floats  for  an  instant  in  the  winter  dusk, 

It  is  my  wedding  gown. 


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